Manifesto of the Gothic Psyche School of Thought

I grew up dreaming of happy endings of fairy tales and, at the same time, fascinated by the charismatic monsters of horror films. At school, I struggled to fit in. People would often comment on the mess I made on my papers due to my left-handedness. Then, I would daydream and create stories about cursed mermaids and enchanted princesses. The world seemed as intense as it was terrifying. At home, I struggled with my maths and reading books was difficult as I kept jumping off lines. I was a terrible eater and talked nonstop until, exhausted, I retreated to my room, where I invented my own toys, imagined magical worlds and created endless narratives for hours.

 
As I grew up, personal relationships were always complicated, and jobs were unfulfilling and exhausting, which led me to break away from everything and everyone. In my mid-20s, I travelled to the land of Stoker, Wordsworth, the Brontë sisters, and Mary Shelley. There, under a Gothic sky, I found a home to explore part of my soul's calling, and met my future husband.

But my formal introduction to Gothic literature came with my studies in English Philology once I was back in Barcelona. During that period, something profound began to knock at the door where the repressed images of my unconscious resided. The phantasmagorical and the monstrous became a language that would take me years to learn to decipher. I needed to stumble upon Carl Gustav Jung's depth psychology to begin a new journey, which offered me a symbolic map with which to recognise in those images a mirror of the human experience.

Throughout my life, the presence of trauma, illness, and death has been a constant. Today, I find myself in a new stage, where the discovery of different forms of neurodivergence in my family as well as myself is providing me with new keys to understanding a new trajectory. What could have been experienced as condemnation has become an impulse for searching. All these have helped me realise that the Gothic is not just an aesthetic, but a space of psychic containment: a unique language that offers refuge, where the painful takes on form, meaning, and also beauty.

From a life experience in constant flux, the Gothic Psyche School of Thought emerges, becoming a place where literature, film, philosophy, metaphysics, and symbolic psychology converge to explore the link between the uncanny in the human being and its psyche. Here, the Gothic ceases to be mere dark entertainment and reveals itself as a territory of self-knowledge, especially fruitful for those living with neurodivergence and complex trauma.

My purpose is not clinical or therapeutic in the conventional sense, but rather humanistic, symbolic, and cultural. I seek to research, create, and discuss how the Gothic, and even horror, can help us give shape and space to the much-feared shadow: sometimes demonised, other times trivialised. I also seek to offer tools to navigate the discomfort of transitions, learn to confront fear, and reconcile ourselves with the inevitable presence of death in all its forms.

This School of Thought argues that the Gothic not only reflects darkness but also transfigures it into thought, art, and self-awareness. It is a necessary descent into the depths of ourselves in order, from there, to find new ways of living and giving meaning to our existence.

The Gothic is a mirror in which the soul recognises itself in its shadow.

My commitment is to build bridges between literature, psychology, and life experience, and to open a unique space in both Spanish and English where the Gothic is experienced not as an escape, but as a path to transformation.

If these words touched you, you're already at the threshold. The next step is yours.

Do you want to know how how your Neurodivergence connects with the Gothic and Horror?