Dr. Gayle Owens is a psychologist who lives and
practices in Austin, Texas, 
emphasizing
Jungian Psychology. She earned a PhD in social psychology at
the University of Houston, and after a short career in public
administration, respecialized in counseling psychology at the
University of Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri.
She has been a psychotherapist to women and men
for over 20 years. Areas of expertise include depression, anxiety,
personal growth and development, family of origin, trauma, dream
analysis, alcohol and drug recovery, panic disorder, spirituality
and transitions.
Visit Dr. Gayle Owens at her web site, http://www.feminineconnection.com
PageOneLit.com: Where did you grow up and
were reading and writing a part of your life?
Gayle Owens: I grew up in South Texas until
I was ten, and then in Southeast Arkansas. Significantly for
reading, I lived on ranches with a mother who loved to read,
and so books became my friends in the way that kids in cities
have friends in their neighborhoods to spend time with. By the
time I was a teenager I was writing about my psychology, i.e.,
journaling about my thoughts and feelings.
PageOneLit.com: Who were your earliest influences
and why?
Gayle Owens: Mother Nature - skinny mother
cats with yet another batch of kittens, dogs bitten by rattle
snakes, beloved horses, beloved fawns, thunder storms, pastures
flush with green clover, chickens that lost their heads and ended
up on the dining room table. Looking back, I can see that I absorbed
the laws of nature and something about the Oneness of it all.
PageOneLit.com: You are a practicing psychologist,
emphasizing Jungian Psychology. What is Jungian Psychology, and
is Jungian Psychology the basis for your book The Feminine Connection:
Freeing the Female Psyche?
Gayle Owens: Jungian psychology is based
on the theories of Carl G. 
Jung, a Swiss
psychiatrist, who lived from the late 1800s until about 1960.
He had a very optimistic view of humans in general, believing
that the human psyche strives for wholeness and what he called
"individuation." The process of individuation is developing
one's unique inner nature and faithfully becoming who that person
can be.
Jung's theory is the basis for my book The Feminine Connection:
Freeing the Female Psyche, as he recognized and popularized the
notion that the feminine and the masculine archetypes are potentials
within each of us.
PageOneLit.com: What inspired you to write
your book, The Feminine Connection: Freeing the Female Psyche?
Gayle Owens: I went in search of the feminine
archetype behind the cultural stereotypes because I wanted to
learn to appreciate the feminine side of myself. I was a "good"
feminist, successful by the standards of our patriarchal society,
having shown that I, too, could be fast and smart, make decisions,
be analytical, buy my own house, buy my own car. But I didn't
have great self esteem; in the back of my mind it was as if I
was apologizing for my feminine identity.
From talking to other women, I know that my struggle with my
self esteem is shared by many. So, once my personal work was
done, I wanted to say to other women, "If you take off the
cultural filters you can see the feminine for who she really
is." I hope The Feminine Connection communicates to women
the immense pride and respect they can have for such feminine
qualities as love and mercy, mystery and darkness, and even irrational,
to name a few.
PageOneLit.com: You say that women "reject
the feminine" and that this is harmful to women. What do
you mean by this?
Gayle Owens: In our efforts to be good students,
good employees, good leaders, we have developed the masculine
side of ourselves, but have rejected the feminine side. Why?
First of all, not only are we not rewarded for living out feminine
qualities, we can be punished for them. For example, children
are still commonly punished (emotionally if not physically) for
crying or for showing anger. And women tell me they "know"
they are not to show feelings in the work place.
More insidious, though, is the overall cultural rejection of
the feminine which plays out in so many ways in our lives from
birth onward. The strong patriarchal bias, is that the masculine
is good/right, and the feminine is suspect/to be feared/weak.
But the problem with women rejecting the feminine in order to
be successful is that they can't get away from who they are.
Thus, they are rejecting themselves. And if a woman does not
like herself, has poor self esteem, feels uncomfortable in her
own skin, she limits her ability to develop as an individual
and her ability to live in the world.
PageOneLit.com: In your book you say that
many women still feel unfulfilled even after achieving their
professional goals and a comfortable standard of living. Why
have you found this to be the case? And how do such women ever
find fulfillment?
Gayle Owens: Fulfillment is an inside job.
When women love and like themselves and develop their own unique
potential they can find fulfillment. Trying to be who a society,
or a religion, or parents, or husbands, or children want us to
be, will never do it. The way is to be authentic to who we are.
We can use Jung's word to describe it, "individuation."
PageOneLit.com: Have you found that women
of all races & cultures have the same barriers to "freeing
the female psyche" or does it differ? Does your book address
this?
Gayle Owens: I'm confident that the patriarchy
is quite well entrenched in Western civilization. I mention some
of the religions of the Mid East as showing the same bias, namely
Judaism and Islam. I enjoyed surveying other religions which
incorporate and honor the feminine such as Christian Mysticism
and Hinduism.
PageOneLit.com: What do you hope to acheive
with your book The Feminine Connection: Freeing the Female Psyche?
Gayle Owens: I am hoping it will open a
dialogue with women, inspiring them to appreciate who they really
are, inspiring them to be grateful that they were born
into a female body.
PageOneLit.com: What's next? Any plans for
another book?
Gayle Owens: In The Feminine Connection,
I allude to spirituality and consciousness. My next book will
be more directly about consciousness and how people change.
PageOneLit.com: What was the last book you
read -- fiction and non-fiction?
Gayle Owens: I'm ¾ through with Sophie's World,
by Jostein Gaarder. It's an entertaining way to learn about philosophy.
I loved the chapter on Spinoza, "God did not create the
world in order to stand outside it. No, God is the world."
I'm afraid this will have to qualify in both the fiction and
the nonfiction categories, as it really is both, and because
it's been so long since I've read a strictly fiction book that
I can't remember what it might have been.
PageOneLit.com: Do you have any hobbies?
What are they? How do they enhance your writing and/or your practice?
Gayle Owens: My two passionate hobbies are
hatha yoga and gardening. Here's a scenario of my perfect day:
yoga class in the morning first thing, then writing the rest
of the day, but whenever a break is needed, outside I go, to
pull some weeds, to water, or just to walk around and say hello
oak trees, hello lantana. Yoga and gardening center me, give
me perspective. They are an essential part of my writing and
my practice as a psychologist because they enable me to be present.
Visit Dr. Gayle Owens at her web site, http://www.feminineconnection.com
