Books for Thinking with Stories
Fairy tales and myths have survived because they can hold more than one meaning at once.
They give us ways of approaching experiences that may be difficult to name directly: belonging and exclusion, love and loss, power and dependence, transformation, uncertainty, and the search for a path through unfamiliar territory.
My books bring these old stories into conversation with contemporary psychological life. They are not guides to the “correct” meaning of a tale, nor manuals offering simple answers. They are companions for reading slowly, reflecting alone or with others, and noticing what becomes visible when a story is given room to work.
Available now
Into the Woods
A Fairy-Tale Companion for Reflection on Everyday Life
Into the Woods brings familiar fairy tales into conversation with the quieter dramas of everyday life: belonging and relationship, identity and loss, change, responsibility, and the difficult work of finding one’s own way.
Each chapter offers a story, psychological reflection and room for the reader’s own thoughts. It can be read privately, alongside therapy, with a friend, or as part of a reflective group.
Published by Spinning Circle Press.
Into the Woods at Work
New CPD resource for reflective practice for mental health clinicians
Into the Woods at Work uses a fairy-tale lens alongside group analytic thinking to explore workplace dynamics, authority, leadership, conflict, uncertainty and the emotional life of organisations.
Suitable for psychologists, therapists, coaches, supervisors, leaders and anyone interested in reflective practice, the journal can be used independently, in supervision, or within training and CPD groups.
Rather than offering techniques or solutions, Into the Woods at Work provides a creative framework for reflection on the stories, roles and relational patterns that emerge in working life.
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Published by Spinning Circle Press.
Forthcoming
Further reflective companions using fairy tales and Greek myth are in preparation, alongside new work on group and institutional life. Publication details will be added here as each title becomes available.
Fairy Tales, Group Analysis and Symbolic Labour
Thinking in Institutional Life
Forthcoming from Routledge in 2027.
This book explores how fairy tales and other shared symbolic material can help groups and institutions think about experiences that are otherwise difficult to hold in mind. It considers what happens when ambiguity becomes hard to tolerate—and how symbolic life can help restore curiosity, complexity and the capacity to think together.
About the author
Dr Libby Nugent is a clinical psychologist and group analyst whose work brings together psychotherapy, group analysis, fairy tale, myth and narrative approaches.
She writes and teaches about symbolic life, supervision, organisational dynamics and the emotional experience of belonging to groups and institutions. Her workshops invite old stories to be encountered collectively—not as puzzles to be solved, but as shared places from which thought, association and conversation can emerge.
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