Jean Shinoda Bolen

Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD, is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, professor of psychiatry and the University of California Medical Center, and an internationally known lecturer.

A prolific writer as well, Bolen is the author of Crones Don't Whine; Goddesses in Older Women; The Millionth Circle; The Tao of Psychology; Goddesses in Everywoman; Gods in Everyman; Ring of Power; Crossing to Avalon; Close to the Bone; Atalanta: The Indomitable Spirit in Everywoman,;Urgent Message from Mother; and Like a Tree.

Bolen is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. She has served on numerous boards and foundations related to Jungian psychology and women's rights, and has received numerous awards for her work in those areas. She is a member of the International Association for Analytical Psychology, and the Society of Jungian Analysts of Northern California and founded Psychiatrists for ERA, which evolved into the Association for Women in Psychiatry.

Bolen attended UCLA and Pomona College before graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 1958. She then entered the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco, receiving her medical degree in 1962, followed by a rotating internship at Los Angeles County General Hospital and a residency in psychiatry at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, University of California Medical Center, San Francisco. Her analytic training was done at the C.G. Jung Institute in San Francisco.

Bolen famously brings an emphasis on the question for meaning and the need for a spiritual dimension in life to all aspects of her work, while also taking into account the powerful effects of archetypes within us and family and culture upon us. Her books are used as college and university texts in gender studies, women's psychology, mythology, spirituality, east-west philosophy, and psychology courses. Additionally, she has been an advocate for women, women's issues, and ethics in psychiatry.

With her former husband, she cofounded Psychic and New Realities magazines, publications about parapsychological, and mind-body-spiritual subjects. She is featured in the widely acclaimed documentary, Goddess Remembered.