Psychology, Spirituality, and the Divine Feminine

Marianna Jaross

I have existed in a range of arenas pertaining to healing and spirituality. I was exposed to the New Age as a child, trained in Reiki around the age of 11, learned to read tarot, and my mother was a minister; with whom I have not lived since I was child. I trained as a psychologist, and I was also running off to ‘woo-woo’ workshops and women’s circles in my spare time throughout my studies; which had both opportunities for healing, and challenges.

I have retained a deep curiosity about the way we approach healing. In my day job as a therapist I have listened to women trying to escape violence. I have sat with people with addictions, using this as a way to cope with pain and trauma (which is why we have to investigate what the ‘function’ of an addiction is). I have sat with people who have told me the years-long side effects of their psychiatrist-prescribed medication. I have sat with people who have told me about the stigma they face for their mental health by mental health professionals. People who have found labels helpful and validating; and people who have found them damning and limiting.

I was always curious about other methods and modalities people were using for healing; and why we may gravitate towards them. In this article, I will talk about women specifically.

From the perspective of psychology and psychiatry, we know that women have been historically (and presently) pathologized, stigmatised, and medicated. Dr Jessica Taylor talks about this extensively. I will quote her work again: “… women and girls are twice as likely to be diagnosed as mentally ill, and being female correlated with diagnosis of every single mental disorder listed in the DSM-V… women and girls are become trapped in the medical model, sometimes for their entire lives.” (Taylor, 2022).

Additionally, in commentary around the proposed changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), Dr Jessica Taylor (2026 states): “This issue is that psychiatry has built entire system around categorising human distress without adequately accounting for power, trauma, inequality, or context - and it is now being forced to confront that reality. This moment does not represent some exciting future of psychiatry. It represents the beginning of its reckoning. Dismantling. Reparations. Compensation. Protection of millions of victims of pathologisation, medicalisation, forced treatment and institutionalisation.”

She continues: “The DSM is not being renamed because it has succeeded in becoming more scientific. It is being renamed because people are realising that they are not broken, disordered, or defective - they are traumatised, responding, surviving. They do not need endless diagnosis and medication. They need safety, justice, validation, and material change.” (Taylor, 2026).

From her perspective, psychiatry has built a system that is dying. My suspicion is that the movements occurring outside of regular psychiatry and healthcare coincide with the critiques of the DSM. The question: What have women been doing in secret in face of a stigmatising system?

Women have been looking for alternative methods of healing that validate their past experiences as real, their pain valid, and tools or embodied ways of being that help them reclaim their identity, their voice, and power from a system that tells them that there is something wrong with them. A pendulum swing to look for an alternative to the medical model may be a necessary and reasonable response.

A part of this may not just come from finding a trauma-informed practitioner. It has also included women gravitating towards Divine Feminine content. This work, whether it arrives in the form of workshops, breathwork, resources, or movement; is telling us something deeper about the state of healing in traditional medicine. Or more specifically, the lack of it.

In an article, Ruth Reymundo Mandel (2026) writes: “The modern revival of the Divine Feminine arose from a need to rebalance the denigration, use, and abuse of women, and from a deep and historic hunger created by imposed lack. It arose from centuries in which women’s bodies were deemed inferior, for use, abused, controlled, their voices discounted, their authority and power denied, and their spiritual lives mediated through institutions that treated them as secondary, dangerous, or invisible. In that context, the language of sacred femininity arrived as a modern corrective mythology. It told women that their intuition mattered, that their bodies were not shameful but sacred, that their emotions were not defects but part of their intelligence, that their inner lives were not subordinate to male bodies, reason, or authority. For many women, this was the first spiritual language they encountered that did not ask them to do violence to themselves, to silence themselves, or to disappear.”

It may be that ‘Divine Feminine’ content is an alternative model and beacon for hope. It says: You are not broken, disordered, or defective. You are not only valued, but have the ability to be revered and cherished. Notice that it is the opposite of what exists in our current framing; which I find deeply revealing about the state of the current medical system and healthcare.

Women looking for ways to reclaim their body, their voice, and their intuition outside of the medical system is no accident. To be provided the promise of being revered, cherished, and not just like we matter; but that we are ‘Goddesses, ‘Divine’ or adjacent to this quite frankly comes from a history of being treated like objects, experiencing abuse, experiencing that our voices don’t matter, and demeaning labels. It also means pivoting towards healing, beauty, hope, safety, possibility, and rebuilding; which is what healthcare and the wider ‘system’ should be facilitating.

But, as with psychiatry, there may be risks in this space; and one of these is that anyone can practice them, it is not regulated, and it has little translation to regular healthcare. Whilst I understand that the lack of regulation is the necessary point, I have also witnessed spaces that have not had the professional training to hold or support the weight and power of these practices. When we enter spaces without the appropriate scaffolding, there is risk.

So, what does the combination of the above tell us?

1.) The DSM is flailing, and women have been looking for alternative models of healing that are thoughtful, validating, and empowering. This should not necessarily be seen as problematic, but as a reasonable response to a system that has traditionally stigmatised women.

2.) Body work, somatic healing, and community are also ways for women to reclaim their power. We need to more deeply acknowledge the body, relational, and community elements of healing and integrate these deeper into healthcare.

3.) When we notice systems outside of regulation that provide (perhaps necessary) reprieve from a medical system and do nothing about it; we are a) ignoring important data and b) provide a portal for non-therapeutically trained professionals to enter the space as ‘gurus,’ whereby there is a risk; mirroring the original problem of DSM-based psychiatry.

Perhaps you are reading this and thinking ‘damned if you do’ (psychiatry) and ‘damned if you don’t' (spiritual modalities). From my perspective, the best training, programs, and practitioners operate from an understanding of a person’s context, social systems, and individual story. They also understand the relational elements of healing.

I deeply believe that the way forward does not come from a binary all or nothing approach; but from collaboration, systems, and people coming together.

I think the future of healing and psychology is going to look like this:

1.) A deeper well-rounded acknowledgement of the systems and context in which a person operates. We are going to have to ask ourselves about the response to trauma, pain and life circumstances, rather than relying on labels.

2.) Our training is going to have to focus more deeply on the relational elements of healing. In a world where the hierarchy and power of the DSM may be crumbling, we are going to have to become less ‘expert’ and more ‘thoughtful companion’ in a person’s process. Our shared humanity is a large part of the healing balm.

3.) Community-based interventions are going to become more widespread, and we are going to welcome this. I think there will (or should be) an increase in community arts interventions, designing spaces beautifully, and creating spaces that are healing and have therapeutic by-products. By facilitating beauty, connection, curiosity and community; we tap into healing elements without entering a therapy room.

4.) An increased collaboration between modalities is required between diagnostic systems, spirituality, and somatic approaches alongside a systemic lens. If we’re going to find healthy and helpful alternatives to a diagnosis heavy system, we have to do so collaboratively moving forward so we can use the best of professional regulation and training, and respect for deeper and soulful healing models.

5.) I am quite convinced that the solution includes currently underrated practitioners trained in creative arts therapies, person-centered care, systems-thinking, and away from diagnostic approaches. I would like more healthy debate, discernment and change: Otherwise, we will continue to renew the lease on a system that is showing significant cracks.

There are pitfalls of the DSM system, and there are pitfalls in relying only on spiritual approaches. Perhaps, we need to orient towards what is non-pathologising and humanistic; with a deeper understanding of the context and system a person operates in. Perhaps it is acknowledging that spirituality and science can co-exist; but we need to have more thoughtful and continued discussions as to what this looks like in practice.

© Marianna Jaross 2026

References:

Mandel, R. R. (2026). Sacred Energy, Real Harm: The ‘Divine Feminine’ and the Men Who Use Her. LinkedIn.

Taylor, J. (2022). How psychiatry traps women forever. Substack.

Taylor, J. (2026). Welcome to the death of the DSM. Substack.