The Sleeping Princess as Psychological Image
There is something deeply unsettling about the story of Briar Rose when viewed through a psychological lens.
For generations, we have been taught to see it as a story of rescue.
A sleeping princess.
A waiting kingdom.
A prince who arrives.
Yet Marie-Louise von Franz invites us to look beneath the surface of fairy tales, into the psychic realities they reveal.
From this perspective, Briar Rose is not simply asleep.
She is suspended.
Development has stopped.
Life is paused.
The feminine principle waits behind a wall of thorns.
The Iron Maiden of Modern Womanhood
When I read this story today, I cannot help but think of Naomi Wolf's metaphor of the Iron Maiden.
The original iron maiden was a device of enclosure. A body trapped inside a rigid structure. A prison disguised as a form.
How different is that from the psychological enclosure many women inhabit today?
We live in a culture that elevates the maiden above all other expressions of womanhood.
Youth is prized.
Freshness is prized.
Beauty is prized.
Potential is prized.
But maturity?
Age?
Depth?
Wisdom?
The elder woman?
These are often rendered invisible.
The Impossible Task of Remaining Maiden
The result is that many women find themselves trapped in an impossible task: remaining maidens long after life is asking something else of them.
We are encouraged to preserve youth rather than develop wisdom.
To maintain appearance rather than cultivate depth.
To remain desirable rather than become fully ourselves.
Motherhood as Threshold
And nowhere have I felt this more acutely than in motherhood.
After giving birth, there is often no true recognition that a woman has crossed a threshold.
Instead, almost immediately, the cultural gaze turns toward restoration.
How quickly can she get her body back?
How quickly can she fit into her old clothes?
How quickly can she become who she was before?
Yet what if she is not meant to return?
What if birth is not an interruption to maidenhood, but an initiation out of it?
“Many women find themselves trapped in an impossible task: remaining maidens long after life is asking something else of them.”
The Grief of Becoming
This has been one of the most difficult realities for me to inhabit.
Motherhood has asked me to mature in ways I did not anticipate. It has demanded a kind of growth that is neither glamorous nor visible. It has stretched me physically, emotionally, psychologically, and relationally.
There are days when I miss the woman I was before.
Days when I compare.
Days when I feel the ache of not recognising my own body.
And in a culture saturated by images of women who seem to bounce effortlessly back after birth, the temptation is to believe that the problem lies within us.
That if we worked harder.
Tried harder.
Restricted more.
Exercised more.
Disciplined ourselves more.
Perhaps we could recover the maiden.
The Modern Iron Maiden
Yet perhaps this is precisely the enclosure Naomi Wolf was pointing toward.
The modern Iron Maiden is no longer made of metal.
It is made of images.
Algorithms.
Beauty standards.
Comparison.
And impossible expectations.
It quietly whispers that the highest achievement of womanhood is to appear untouched by life.
Untouched by birth.
Untouched by age.
Untouched by grief.
Untouched by experience itself.
When Development Stalls
Yet psychologically, something dangerous happens when we remain identified with the maiden.
Development stalls.
Life pauses.
Like Briar Rose, we fall asleep at the very threshold where transformation is asking to occur.
The depression many women experience may not simply be about losing the body they once had.
It may also be grief for an identity that can no longer contain who they are becoming.
Expansion Rather Than Reduction
“What if birth is not an interruption to maidenhood, but an initiation out of it?”
The psyche knows something the culture often does not.
There are seasons of life that require expansion rather than reduction.
The body that has carried children may need more space.
More nourishment.
More rest.
More softness.
Not because it has failed, but because it has changed.
And perhaps what we suffer from is not our changing bodies, but the inability to imagine beauty beyond maidenhood.
Beauty Beyond Maidenhood
The tragedy is not aging.
The tragedy is believing that youth is the only form of value a woman possesses.
Because every stage of feminine life asks for something different.
The maiden discovers herself.
The mother creates and sustains life.
The mature woman develops discernment.
The elder carries wisdom, memory, perspective, and soul for the community.
Yet contemporary culture remains fixated on the first chapter.
A sleeping kingdom.
A frozen life.
A developmental pause.
The fairy tale begins to look less like fantasy and more like diagnosis.
The Cost of Awakening
Perhaps the thorns surrounding Briar Rose are not obstacles keeping us out.
Perhaps they are protections preventing premature awakening.
Because awakening is costly.
To awaken means accepting change.
Accepting age.
Accepting loss.
Accepting that we cannot remain who we once were.
Closing Reflection
And yet something extraordinary waits on the other side.
Not the loss of beauty.
But the discovery of a different kind of beauty.
One rooted not in appearance but in presence.
Not in desirability but in substance.
Not in youth but in consciousness.
The Question Briar Rose Asks Women Today
Perhaps the question Briar Rose asks women today is not:
"Who will wake me?"
But:
"What part of me remains asleep because I am still trying to remain a maiden?"
And what wisdom might emerge if I finally allowed myself to become the woman life is asking me to be?
Read More Recent Reflections
Centre
About
Approach
Appointments
FAQs
Connect
Offering a sacred, compassionate space for women to reconnect with their inner world through Soul Centred Psychotherapy, supporting healing, awareness, and a return to wholeness.
Availability
I’m currently travelling and offering virtual sessions via secure video conferencing. In-person sessions will resume upon my return.
Contact
ivana@evaessence.com.au
Based in Australia
PACFA Member #27247 | ASCP Member
Offering a sacred, compassionate space for women to reconnect with their inner world through Soul Centred Psychotherapy, supporting healing, awareness, and a return to wholeness.
Centre
Contact
ivana@evaessence.com.au
I’m currently travelling and offering virtual sessions via secure video conferencing. In-person sessions will resume upon my return.
Offering a sacred, compassionate space for women to reconnect with their inner world through Soul Centred Psychotherapy, supporting healing, awareness, and a return to wholeness.
Centre
About
Approach
Appointments
Reflections
FAQs
Connect
Contact
ivana@evaessence.com.au
I’m currently travelling and offering virtual sessions via secure video conferencing. In-person sessions will resume upon my return.
