Ebook: African Mythology, Femininity, and Maternity
Author: Ismahan Soukeyna Diop
- Tags: Psychology, Cross Cultural Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Gender Studies, African Culture, Non-Western Philosophy
- Series: Pan-African Psychologies
- Year: 2019
- Publisher: Springer International Publishing
- Edition: 1st ed. 2019
- Language: English
- pdf
This book explores feminine archetypes and mythological figures in African and European traditions with an underlying goal of describing the foundations of social status for women. The author provides a rich corpus of mythology and tales to illustrate aspects of female and mother-daughter relationships. Diop analyzes the symbolic aspects of maternity and femininity, describing the social meaning of the matrix, breasts, and breastfeeding. A retrospective of female characters in African literature brings an interesting approach to explore the figures of femininity and maternity in society. After an extensive analysis of African mythology and tales, the author proposes a way to integrate them in the clinical psychotherapy as a projective material. The analysis of clinical cases offers an example of how this material can be used in therapy with women from African descent.