Carol S. Pearson is an American author and educator. She develops new theories and models with an applied practical bent, building on the work of psychiatrist C. G. Jung, psychoanalyst James Hillman, mythologist Joseph Campbell, and other depth psychologists.
Pearson is best known as the author of The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By (1986, 1989, 1998), which was a HarperSanFrancisco best-seller, followed by the more expansive Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes to Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World (1991). With the assistance of Hugh Marr, she co-created the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator (PMAI), published by the Center for Applications of Psychological Type (CAPT), to help people better understand their motivations, their unconscious assumptions, and the narratives they think, tell, and live.
Her most recent book, Persephone Rising: Awakening The Heroine Within, published in October 2015, bridges the genres of depth psychology, myth scholarship, and memoir. It draws on archetypal stories from an ancient Greek mystery religion as a guide to thriving today in a world in flux. It concludes with an analysis of narrative intelligence as an important aspect of emotional intelligence that also builds cognitive complexity. In April 2016, Persephone Rising received a gold medal from the Nautilus Book Awards in the category of books for women.
In addition to such books written for the general public, Pearson has made contributions to the fields of education, marketing and branding, organizational development, and leadership through publications such as Educating the Majority: Women Challenge Tradition in Higher Education, co-editors, Donna L. Shavlik and Judith G. Touchton (1989); The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes, co-author, Margaret Mark (2001); Mapping the Organizational Psyche: A Jungian Theory of Organizational Dynamics and Change, co-author, John G. Corlett (2004); and The Transforming Leader: New Approaches to Leadership for the Twenty-First Century (2012).
She designed the Organizational and Team Culture Indicator, also published by CAPT, to help organizational development and human resource professionals and marketers understand organizational cultures. Kenexa, a global human resources company, bought the OTCI instrument from CAPT. IBM later acquired Kenexa and translated the instrument for global use. It is now known as the IBM Kenexa Organizational Cultural Insight Survey.
Early life and education
Pearson was born in Chicago in 1944, the eldest child of Thelma (Widman) and John A. Pearson. At the age of two, she moved with her family to Houston, Texas, where she attended public schools and later Rice University, from which she received a BA (1966), MA, (1968), and PhD (1970). She has one younger sibling, John Douglas Pearson. She is married to David R. Merkowitz, a political and public affairs consultant, and has two step-children, Jeffrey Merkowitz, who works at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and Stephen Merkowitz, a gravitational physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and a daughter, Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz, a political science professor at the University of Rhode Island, as well as six grandchildren.
Pearson began her study of archetypal theory and narrative intelligence in the English Department at Rice University, which emphasized the myth/symbol school of literary studies. Later in her career, she earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from Wisdom University (2012), a graduate school originally called the University of Creation Spirituality and now part of Ubiquity University, that explores the progressive mystic traditions in religions throughout the world. She also holds an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Norwich University.
Academic career
Pearson's academic career began with a series of faculty positions in the 1970s. First hired as an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of Colorado, she was selected as the founding director of the CU Women Studies Program and was instrumental in developing Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, one of the earliest academic journals in the field. She subsequently was recruited to be the first director of the Women’s Studies Program at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she negotiated to bring the offices of the National Women's Studies Association and the journal Feminist Studies to the campus.
