**3.4 Step 4. Explanatory approach to interpreting the complexity of patterns and variations**

Various observations and interpretations can be made about how the client used the Snow White fairy tale to convey information about their current life experiences of motherhood. Within the client's imagery narrative, Snow White as a beautiful woman dancing alone has a sense of being able to move freely at her own choice (E-1b). She has no children to worry about and the client is envious of being "single and childless." But then a subsequent realization of aloneness is expressed and the woman walks away, leaving this experience behind. This imagery accesses the challenges of matrescence in changing to incorporate the child into the life of the mother, and acknowledges the desire to return to individual freedom and agency in life prior to motherhood, and the "worry" of children is explicitly addressed. However, this imagery also carries reflection and comparison about aloneness, suggesting the benefits of family, belonging, and the larger picture of motherhood as an integral role in society.

The apparent conflation of a wicked witch with the Evil Queen (E-2) in the standard fairy tale suggests an ambivalence about female characters and energies. The word "ridiculous" suggests that there is something out of joint in the situation, and yet the color purple suggests royalty which links to the original tale. This ambivalence suggests that the client has further work to do around the role of her female energy and her sense of self as she grows into matrescence.

The sense of inner comparison appears in being looked over "to see if I am a good mother or not" (E-3), and this embodies a strong sense of reflection as in the Mirror


*Reframing Motherhood within a Jungian Approach to Snow White: A Research Case Study Using… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109443*


*Note: Italics are used for explanatory comments; italics in brackets are used for the therapist's verbal interventions where they have significantly impacted the client's process.*
