Maureen Murdock, PhD is a psychotherapist, writing teacher and the author of eight books, including The Heroine's Journey:Woman's Quest for Wholeness, a ground-breaking book which revealed a broader understanding of the female psyche on both a personal and cultural level. Murdock is also the author of Unreliable Truth, The Heroine's Journey Workbook; Fathers' Daughters; Spinning Inward: Using Guided Imagery with Children and is the editor of an anthology of memoirs written by her writing students entitled Monday Morning Memoirs: Women in the Second Half of Life. Her newest book, Mythmaking: Self-Discovery and the Timeless Art of Memoir, was published by Shambhala in 2024.
The following interviews and podcasts with or about Maureen give an in-depth view of her work.
Why Women Need Their Own Myth:
A Podcast about The Heroine's Journey
Amy McPhie Allebest, independent podcast host of Breaking Down Patriarchy, discusses how Maureen Murdock rewrote the myth of the hero for women, and what The Heroine's Journey reveals about our culture.
Maureen Discusses Her New Book Mythmaking at Chaucer's Books in Santa Barbara
After a nice introduction by her friend Carolyn Butcher, Maureen talks about her book Mythmaking: Self-Discovery and the Timeless Art of Memoir at Chaucer's Books in Santa Barbara.
Maureen's Presentation at
The Once and Future Goddesses Conference
Maureen's presentation at a 2025 gathering at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara that reflected upon the emergence of the archetypal feminine in the fields of Women’s Spirituality, Mythological Studies, and Depth Psychology during the 1970s and explored current perspectives and developments in the field.
Maureen Murdock & John Bucher
The Podcast With a Thousand Faces
Maureen Murdock is best known for her influential book The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness, written in response to Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Maureen had a personal and professional relationship with Campbell and it was through their dialogue that her vision of the feminine mythic path began to take shape.
Her newest work, Mythmaking: Self-Discovery and the Timeless Art of Memoir, invites us to explore how our personal stories echo ancient archetypes and how writing can become a transformative act of reclaiming the self.
In this conversation with host John Bucher, we explore the evolution of the heroine’s journey, Maureen’s reflections on Campbell’s legacy, and how myth and memoir together can help us find meaning in the chaos of change.
Maureen Murdock:
Memoir Through A Mythic Lens
Maureen Murdock joins Ronit Plank at Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how myths help excavate our stories, memoir as a way to reclaim the past, invisible primary patterns in the psyche, letting ourselves meander and reflect, using process journals to excavate fears about being vulnerable, allowing structure to emerge, a favorite prompt of hers, and her latest book Mythmaking: Self-Discovery and the Timeless Art of Memoir.
The Heroine’s Journey:
Follow Your Blissters Podcast
with Will Gethin
Will Gethin interviews Maureen Murdock, a Jungian psychotherapist, photographer and author of the ground-breaking bestseller The Heroine’s Journey and other books, whose work explores the mysteries of the psyche, a fascination with mythology and a love of storytelling and memoir writing. In this episode, Maureen introduces her heroine’s journey model, which she created to better represent the psycho-spiritual development of women she felt was overlooked by Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey framework. She also explores her own lived experience of traveling through the 10 stages of The Heroine’s Journey, including her mythic journey of descent to the underworld.
