Lecture and Workshop: Caught between selfless devotion and selfish ambition, contemporary women are repeatedly disconnected from their inner authority. Many women accomplish much of what they set out to do but all too often lose themselves striving for success. Without a female blueprint for identity, where is today’s woman to look for a bedrock sense of self?
The notion we will explore this weekend is that the source of female identity is lodged in the girl of eight or nine. Women’s life studies show that a woman comes fully into her own only when she circles back to catch hold of the girl she was-and lost-in childhood.
The workshop will focus on reclaiming “the girl within” through:
- guided meditations that revive forgotten girlhood memories
- photographic images of girls and women
- imaginary dialogues with the inner girl
By tracing a new pattern of female identity development, we will seek to rediscover the spirited, self-possessed girl within ourselves. Those who are therapists will acquire a new set of tools for working with clients engaged in the search for the true self.
Emily Hancock, M.S.W. ED.E. is a psychologist and social worker associated with the Center for Psychological Studies in Albany, and is in private practice in Berkeley. She earned her doctorate in Human Development at Harvard University, where she began research for her new book The Girl Within (E.P. Dutton, 1989, Ballantine, 1990)