Leaving My Father's House

A Jungian analyst in Toronto, Woodman here collaborates with three of her analysands, who tell their own stories of breaking with patriarchal values and recovering feminine energies. Danson, a graduate student coping with the trauma of an abortion, comes to terms with her loveless childhood and a brother's sexual abuse. Hamilton, a dancer struggling to crack through the armored rage in her body, dialogues with inner figures she calls Medicine Woman and Deer. Allen, a sculptor working through the grief of being childless, at age 72 ``faces into darkness with the wit and wisdom of a seasoned crone.'' Using Jungian archetypes and a Grimm fairy tale about a princess who rejects an incestuous marriage, Woodman in her interlinking commentaries charts each woman's growth toward wholeness. The first-person case histories, distilled from private journals, are detailed maps of self-transformation. Illustrated. (May)