Snow White: Life Almost Lost

How can I get back the life I believed was lost?" Theodor Seifert sees this as the central question in the fairy tale "Snow White."

For the psychotherapist it is a daily experience to hear patients say they "feel dead," that "life is passing [them] by," that they are "spectators but not participants." Seifert views the fairy tale as a wellspring of wisdom where one can find trustworthy solutions to problems. The central problem he treats in his interpretation of "Snow White" is relationship: "Can my frozen feelings come to life again?" "Can I make a new beginning, or must I live out a living death?"

Theodor Seifert, Ph.D., is an author and Jungian analyst in Stuttgart, West Germany. He is a training analyst in the German Society for Analytical Psychology and the general editor of a series of psychological studies on fairy tales, of which this is the first volume.

Table of Contents

"SNOW WHITE"

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I In the Middle of Winter CHAPTER II Snowflakes in Winter: Small, Scarcely Perceptible Feelings and Hopes

CHAPTER III Only a Queen ...: Constrictions and Biases

CHAPTER IV A Window Framed in Black: The View from Mourning

CHAPTER V The Queen Was Sewing: The Hint of Something New

CHAPTER VI The Prick of the Needle: The Call of Life

CHAPTER VII Three Drops of Blood in the Snow: The Great Conflict

CHAPTER VIII The Child: Transformation and New Beginning

CHAPTER IX The Death of the Queen: Responsibility and Concern

CHAPTER X The New Spouse: Reestablishing an Old Condition

CHAPTER XI "Mirror, Mirror, Here I Stand" Self-Condemnation for Better or Worse

CHAPTER XII "A Thousand Times More Beautiful" Isolation or Community

CHAPTER XIII In the Wild Forest: The Secret Life of the Soul

CHAPTER XIV With the Dwarfs: Hidden Growth

CHAPTER XV Deception and Poison: The Battle for Life, Love, and Death

CHAPTER XVI The Glass Coffin: Between Life and Death

CHAPTER XVII A King's Son Comes into the Forest: Encounter, Sacrifice, Treasure

CHAPTER XVIII You Are with Me: Rooted in One's Own Earth

CHAPTER XIX "She Got so Terrified, so Terrified" The Seed of Evil

Chapter XX The Red-Hot Shoes: Collective and Cold Heat