Archetypal Identity Work™ (AIW) is a narrative–somatic framework for psychotherapy and personal growth. It integrates narrative therapy, depth psychology, and symbolic literacy to support the integration of multiple self-states within the psyche.

Symbolic literacy, in this context, refers to the learned ability to recognize, interpret, and work with symbolic meaning as it appears in stories, images, bodily states, relational patterns, and future imaginings—without mistaking symbols for literal truths or bypassing psychological process. It is a cognitive–emotional skill, not a belief system.

AIW approaches identity as a dynamic symbolic system rather than a fixed personality structure or diagnostic label. Clients are guided to observe how meaning organizes experience: how certain roles repeat, how emotions cluster around particular narratives, how the body carries unfinished stories, and how future orientations quietly govern present behavior.

Using symbolic maps of identity—such as vitality, emotional regulation, agency, and relational orientation—clients identify core archetypal dynamics shaping their inner and outer lives. These maps are not predictive or interpretive tools; they function as reflective frameworks that help clients notice patterns, tensions, and organizing principles across time.

Each session weaves together:

• Narrative re-authoring: reorganizing lived experience through metaphor, symbolic language, and story structure, restoring agency to the narrator.

• Archetypal dialogue: differentiating and engaging inner figures or roles to reduce internal conflict and increase integration.

• Somatic practice: anchoring insight in breath, movement, posture, and sensation so meaning becomes embodied rather than abstract.

• Future-Self embodiment: cultivating a coherent orientation toward the self one is becoming, allowing future responsibility to inform present choice.

Clinical Benefits

By strengthening symbolic literacy, AIW helps clients relate to their inner experience without over-identifying with it. This work:

• Enhances emotional regulation and self-coherence

• Reduces shame by reframing traits as meaningful patterns rather than personal defects

• Supports individuation, agency, and self-leadership

• Encourages spiritual or existential depth without bypassing relational, emotional, or somatic reality

AIW views the human being as a living story—a pattern of meaning continuously expressed through body, psyche, and relationship. The therapist’s role is not to interpret symbols on the client’s behalf, nor to impose explanatory frameworks, but to witness, translate, and mirror the client’s evolving myth so it can be lived consciously rather than enacted unconsciously.