I’ve just been reading a blog by Meg Barker about Winnie-the-Pooh. Meg is a psychologist and a psychotherapist and her musings about what this book can teach us about relationships made me think about other children’s stories, picture books and novels that I find particularly helpful in my thinking and with clients.

One of my favourites is the Wizard of Earthsea trilogy by Ursula Le Guin, These tell about a land where mages/wizards can move things and do magic of all kinds and concerns the life of a powerful young mage called Ged. Power comes from knowing the true name of things, During his training, Ged allows a shadow out of the underworld and has to leave the mage school as the shadow is following him and too dangerous. The first book in the series concerns Ged’s growing up and his attempts to defeat or escape the shadow. Right at the end of the book, he is sailing a boat using a magically induced wind, but the terrible shadow is catching up with him. In desperation, he turns to face his shadow and as he does so he and the shadow both say the same word, naming the other as Ged. The shadow is part of Ged and he is part of the shadow.

We all have our shadow side and facing it is one of the things we may try to do in psychotherapy. Acknowledging, even welcoming, the bits of ourselves that we find distasteful or even hateful is a way of gaining power and agency in our own lives.

Although this is a children’s book, I first read it as an adult and immediately loved it, but it only became meaningful to me in this way when I started on the path of counselling and psychotherapy. Le Guin writes for adults as well, but for me this children’s trilogy (as it was originally — actually, like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, now four books) stands out as the most powerful.