Clarissa Pinkola Estés: 1943—: Writer, Psychologist Biography

When Clarissa Pinkola Estés went on a journey of self-discovery, she never intended to make a living telling the stories that made up her personal identity as woman and an individual. Yet with the publication of Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype, Estés directed the field of women's studies toward the study of the self through storytelling, both in reciting individual unique stories as well as putting the individual self into myths and tales to decipher how the concept of self and womanhood has been constructed by society. Estés, who worked her way up from poverty into the realm of academia, breaks down large issues of social psychology into simple stories that all women can relate to, and many readers use her books to answer questions about themselves they had yet to even consider.