About

I’m a writer and Jungian psychotherapist in private practice. I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but in a little nook that feels like the countryside.

Trouble in my life has led to discoveries. One is the difference between good hardship and bad. Another is the guidance dreams give – like pulling a numinous sword out of a stone – one that helps to protect what’s worthwhile and dispel what’s not. Since Sword has been my name since birth, I identify my relationship with dreams to my name.

I got a bachelor of arts in English from South Dakota State University in my twenties and then worked as a journalist and public relations writer. During college I loved reading William Blake, Willa Cather, N. Scott Momaday, Dylan Thomas and many others. I felt at home hanging-out with lovers of literature. Later, my writing jobs helped me learn how to work. As a feature writer for a regional newspaper, I met interesting people and wrote articles about them. I also covered the courts, the local police department, and trials, and that was where I saw the side of the news that doesn’t get published.

That was school, and a fine one for starting adult life. But when my initiation there was done, I found a gifted Jungian therapist who helped me learn to work with dreams.

A short ways along that path, I started taking graduate-level English courses. I was reading Moby Dick and writing about it as a portrait of one person’s psychology. I thought I’d go for a master’s degree in English. But the guidance that came from my inner life was to get a master’s degree in counseling psychology, and later, a doctorate in clinical psychology. I did that. Beyond the assigned reading, I studied mythology, folklore, fairy tales, and literature from diverse cultures. I began doing yoga in 1993. I started my psychotherapy practice in 1999.

I practice hatha yoga steadily. I love Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, so I write about them. I’m also interested in the commonalities between yoga and other evolutionary vehicles.

Whenever I get to this point in revising this piece, I start hearing in my mind the Beatles song, “The Long and Winding Road.” Since I won’t be able to scrunch-up twenty years of road and put it in a teaspoon, I’ll just say this:  In my practice, I collaborate with people one-on-one to uncover what their dreams are saying. I also lead groups in psychodrama – a way of re-entering dreams, portraying them, and interacting with the symbolic layer to intensify the transformative agency of dreams. As a writer, I listen to muses and strive to bring what they say to life.

They insisted on this site. First, I lived out a common dream of resistance: In the dark of night a banging at the door, the fearsome intruders budging, then shoving the door and me pushing to keep them out.  They barged in and turned out to be my muses wanting to blog. They won me over by telling me stories and talking inspiration.

Now I’m drinking dandelion tea and burning the late-night candle, listening for more. I love the writing process – both the solitude and the sense of breakthroughs coming from the inside. I also hope to connect with you. Please share your comments!

Carrie Sword,  Ph.D., L.P.C. / Minneapolis, MN / (612) 382-7843