The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden: Understanding the Wounded Feeling Function in Masculine and Feminine Psychology

This is an exploration of the malaise of our time, the wounded-feeling function, through the mystic stories of "The Fisher King" and "The Handless Maiden". Johnson looks to the heightened, magical language of myth for an analysis of, and a prescription for curing, this contemporary malaise. The "Fisher King" story can be seen as an experience of the masculine in either gender; so too, the tale of "The Handless Maiden" explores both a woman's interior experience, as well as being an allegory of the feminine element in us all.