Depression is suffering and our resistance to suffering. This thesis examines that resistance, the place of being caught between life and death while still clinging to an unsatisfying life. Using the Sumerian tale of Inanna and her underworld sister Ereshkigal, the Greek story of Persephone, and the Inuit myth of Sedna, this thesis examines stories of women descending to the underworld to understand the author's story of descent and the larger story of depression in women. This process explicates and explores the fundamental relationship between depression and creativity in women. Women must be willing to submit to their inner suffering voice to access their full potency and force, although this takes time, sacrifice, and loss of control. Theoretical foundations of this hermeneutic and heuristic research come from the work of Carl Jung, Marie-Louise von Franz, Sylvia Brinton Perera, Barbara Stevens Sullivan, and other Jungian analysts and scholars from other disciplines.
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