In a world obsessed with heroes, who’s charting the map for queens—women ready to claim their throne beyond the script? That was the challenge posed by Dr. Stacey Simmons on the 4th & 11th September, when I (Buranee) and about 30 others gathered on Zoom for an intimate session that sparked The Quest.
Dr. Simmons, who has a PhD in social psychology from the University of New Orleans and a Master’s in Counseling Psychology from Pacifica, has recently published her book The Queen’s Path: A Revolutionary Guide to Women’s Empowerment and Sovereignty.
The series starts by challenging the dominance of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey as a one-size-fits-all blueprint for human growth. Simmons argued in the first session this archetype, while profound, was never designed with women in mind. Women often find themselves sidelined, funneled into polarized roles: the demure, passive “trad wife” or the seductive, magical “witch.” These aren’t paths to agency; they’re societal traps that keep us dancing to others’ tunes. Even well-intentioned adaptations like the Heroine’s Journey—while brilliant—still fall short of capturing the full spectrum of women’s trajectories toward protagonism.
This is where The Queen’s Path comes in, an archetype Simmons didn’t invent but uncovered after nearly a decade of rigorous research. Drawing from scripture, blockbuster films, and the raw stories of her patients, she maps a distinct journey to sovereignty: a woman’s deliberate reclaiming of her deepest Self from cultural captivity. Simmons illustrated this with cinematic examples from Barbie, The Colour Purple, Wicked, and Promising Young Woman.
The September 4 session unpacked the archetype’s structure, equipping us to spot it in everyday life and cultural artifacts, followed by a Q&A. The September 11 mentoring circle built on this foundation by shifting the focus to practical application, where we explored the Queen’s Path in our own lives, and again had the opportunity to ask many questions. Attendees were keen to engage and I also ventured a question or two. In attendance were therapists, but also writers looking for ways to do justice to the stories of female characters.
The webinar series was free to attend, and recordings were shared with attendees afterwards. You can get your free Queen’s Path Story Map by clicking here.