Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype (Paperback)

What if the exhaustion, self-doubt, and sense of being too much or not enough that so many women feel isn't personal failure but the result of being severed from something wild, instinctual, and essential? Clarissa Pinkola Estés' Women Who Run with the Wolves uses fairy tales, myths, and stories from cultures around the world to illuminate the Wild Woman archetype—the powerful, creative, instinctual nature that lives beneath layers of cultural conditioning and invites women back to their authentic selves.

This isn't a book you read once and put away—it's a companion for the journey of reclaiming lost parts of yourself. Through stories like Bluebeard, The Handless Maiden, and La Loba, Estés explores themes of intuition, creativity, life cycles, and the deep feminine psyche. Each tale becomes a mirror reflecting aspects of women's experience that culture often silences: rage, wildness, aging, sexuality, power, and the instinct to create and destroy. This is self-discovery through story—recognizing yourself in ancient patterns and reclaiming what was taken or given away.

What You'll Discover

• The Wild Woman archetype and how cultural conditioning severs women from instinctual knowing
• How fairy tales and myths contain psychological wisdom about women's development and healing
• The creative life-death-life cycle and why destruction is necessary for renewal
• Reclaiming intuition, rage, sexuality, and other aspects culture teaches women to suppress
• Stories as medicine for understanding your own journey and psychological patterns
• Jungian psychology applied to women's experience across cultures and time

Estés writes as a cantadora—a keeper of old stories—blending clinical insight with poetic wisdom. This is a book about remembering who you were before you learned to be acceptable, about trusting your instincts over external approval, and about the ongoing work of tending your wild nature in a culture that prefers women tamed. Self-discovery here means listening to the howl beneath the silence.

What parts of yourself have you been taught to suppress? What would it mean to run with the wolves again? Estés' modern classic—over 2.7 million copies sold—offers profound guidance for any woman ready to reclaim her instinctual self and creative power.

Perfect for: Women exploring feminine psychology and reclaiming lost aspects of self, readers interested in Jungian analysis and archetypal psychology, those drawn to myth and fairy tales as psychological wisdom, anyone navigating life transitions or creative blocks, women seeking to reconnect with instinct and authentic power.

Paperback edition. A modern classic of feminine psychology through myth and story—essential reading for women's self-discovery and reclamation of the Wild Woman archetype. Also available in hardcover.