Marion Woodman ⎯ Integrating Body + Soul

Below is a paper I wrote for a Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories class at Pacifica Graduate School in the Fall of my first quarter. I felt called to share it because as I dive into insights on how the body and soul can integrate, I feel it is important to share these findings. I’m confident that being whole and well includes a relationship with our body and soul. My work as a movement teacher for 20 years and my future work as a therapist will revolve around this nexus. I’ve seen time and time again how vital a practice embodiment is. Enjoy the read! I hope you fall in love with Marion Woodman as much as I have, and I hope there may be some nugget here that serves you.

-Tawny

Woodman ⎯ Integrating Body + Soul

What if integrating body and soul plays a significant role in therapy? And in doing so, it allows life to fulfill itself through us; Marion Woodman is confident it does. In this paper, I explore some of the theories Woodman brought to analytic psychology and her unique take on and contribution to its practice. I will share the background of Woodman’s work, describe the main points of view of her theory, the model's central assumptions, including significant definitions of terms associated with this theory, and how I personally relate to her pioneering post-Jungian approach.

Marion Woodman, a Jungian analyst, author, teacher, lecturer, and poet born in Ontario, Canada, in 1928, was one of the first to face and treat eating disorders with Jung’s concepts. She dedicated her studies and subsequent books to topics ranging from obesity, anorexia, addiction, the drive for perfection, obsession, the body's role in healing, and the devastation the repressed feminine can have. After attending the C.G Jung Institute in Zurich, she became interested in the unconscious mind and the role of masculine and feminine energies both internally and externally that, when out of proportion, can result in various physical and psychological illnesses.

Through her journey with eating disorders and a near-death experience while in India, she became introspective and willing to search for her revelations, transformations, and epiphanies. Facing what Jung termed the wounded healer, the idea that a diseased soul is a prerequisite to being able to heal, Woodman emerged from her experiences with helpful content and insights to share with the world. Her themes are still very much respected and still being applied today. The main points of her theory I explore here are the importance of conscious femininity, shadow work, dream tending, and the inclusion of the somatic body.

Woodman’s main body of work revolved around the importance of what she called conscious femininity, which is to bring the unconscious feminine forward, to live an embodied life, one that is connected to the soul, to be, and to become. These feminine qualities embrace intuition, relationship, compassion, and vulnerability. These are qualities that men also have but generally are suppressed and devalued by both genders. Conscious femininity is the opposite of our modern mainstream cultural narrative that emphasizes doing, performing, and perfecting. The main point of view here is that our current patriarchal culture admires productivity above anything else and misses much meaning in life in doing so. Woodman clarifies this idea in her book The Pregnant Virgin (1985), where she writes:

“The word 'feminine,' as I understand it, has very little to do with gender, nor is woman the custodian of femininity. Both men and women are searching for their pregnant virgin. She is the part of us who is outcast, the part which comes to consciousness through going into darkness, mining our leaden darkness, until we bring her silver out.”

The importance of this mining for darkness (Woodman, 1985) is another main point of view Woodman’s work honors. Like most depth-oriented analysts, Woodman also saw great value in exploring one's shadow. Shadow refers to the unconscious parts of the self that tend to be ignored, repressed, or avoided. Woodman discovered in herself and then through her work that there is much meaning in being able to descend into the darker places in the psyche. Often, the neglected parts are precisely the parts where transformation starts and which demand growth. Woodman encourages us to face our fears, even when it is painful. She emphasizes visiting the places and things we suppress and being with the suffering and hurt parts. Here there are truths we often don’t want to face, but when we do, we are transformed. Through the shadow's lack of attention and development, the repressed parts will begin to speak. Woodman emboldens humans to face, not avoid; address, not suppress; and surrender, not resist these shadow parts of ourselves and harvest their good tidings.

Like her predecessors, she also worked with dreams and viewed their content as full of information about the unconscious. Dreams offer one insight into the inner works of the psyche, and through dreams' use of symbols, metaphoric language, tone, and energy have riches to share and meaning for the individual to explore. Dreams are the language of the soul, and not exploring them is like not opening mail sent to you (Woodman, 1985). Because so much of her work was in what she called soul-making, dreams became one vital way to bring about the valued integration of body and soul. Dreams are a tool of transformation like the mucky, dank waters that offer the lotus to blossom; the dark content in dreams is what nourishes the light within.

One last central point of view that Woodman held that was somewhat different than many of her Jungian counterparts is the importance she placed on the body’s role in therapy. Unlike Jung’s emphasis on the intellect, Woodman invited the body to play a leading role in therapy. She believed, and now science concurs, that the body has much wisdom with a voice and a spirit that deserve to be listened to. Allowing for the body’s expression was necessary to bring wholeness. Through her legacy of working in a relationship with the body, she explores how one can connect and express the emotional landscape kinesthetically through movement. Listening to the prompts of the body is vital as the body offers purposeful symptoms worthy of exploration. Using the mind's imagination and the sensations produced through the nervous system, body movements can become a conduit to express the unique energy of the soul. She brought dance, expressive arts, rituals, vocal work, nurturing touch, and body image exercises to therapy through a technique she co-created known as BodySoul Rhythms. Still in practice worldwide, this body-based practice aims to bridge body and soul to access our whole self.

Next, I will cover some central assumptions of Woodman's work.

Woodman's first central assumption is incorporating the soul’s importance into psychological work. She encourages us to stay tuned to the spiritual nature of diseases, illnesses, or disorders. For example, she often shared that eating disorders were rooted in the suppressed feminine. Both obesity and anorexia nervosa are symptoms, although extreme, of the widespread repression of the feminine in modern life. She viewed eating disorders and addictions as symptoms of a lack of healthy feminine roles or values in our current male-oriented culture. These compulsive behaviors, she believed, all manifested because of a more profound longing for spiritual fulfillment that was so sorely missing. Woodman understood the patterns of behaviors in those with eating disorders, or disordered eating patterns, because of personal experience and through studies and analyses she ran. She offers many perspectives on this condition, theories on how this develops, why it does, and perspectives on treatment. Woodman presents evidence in her first book, “The Owl was a Baker’s Daughter” (1980) how the unconscious takes somatic form when she writes:

“In this study, the Great Goddess either materializes in the obese or devours the anorexic. Her victim must come to grips with her femininity by dealing with the symptoms. Only by discovering and loving the goddess lost within her own rejected body can a woman hear her own authentic voice.” (p. 10)

This disordered eating drives forward the solution if one is willing to look at one's shadow and face the soul work it is requesting. If brought to conscious realization, a natural regulation will happen, and individuation ensues. Individuation is an important Jungian term that describes the synthesis of the unconscious with the conscious.

Another primary assumption of Woodman’s work is the reality of the toxic overload and overwhelm that the modern female faces today. This current male paradigm can lead to mental health imbalances in women, who suffer from anxiety and depression more than men, and often find themselves caught in a destructive loop to please others at the sacrifice of their souls. This addiction to perfection is an addiction to masculinity or the masculine principle. The aim is to balance the masculine with the feminine, yet in our current reality, patriarchal perfection exposes the contaminated healthy masculine, which challenges healthy feminine innately. The overarching framework we live in is hyper-body image-focused; thus, the pressure of being a woman, with advertising presenting a certain “way” to look, leads to condemnation and self- criticism, and to feeling the death of the soul. To have the courage or ego-strength to die metaphorically to that way of life and transform into the next one is the path Woodman sees for humanity. To align with life principles, to be pro-life in the face of the patriarchy. Woodman (1985) writes about this challenge and simultaneous opportunity:

“Standing alone today demands even more courage and strength than it did in former cultures. From infancy, children have been programmed to perform. Rather than living from their own needs and feelings, they learn to assess situations in order to please others. Without an inner core of certainty grounded in their own musculature, they lack the inner resources to stand alone. Pummeled by mass media and peer group pressures, their identity may be utterly absorbed by collective stereotypes. In the absence of adequate rites of passage, ad-men become the high priests of an initiation into the addictions of consumerism.” (p. 16)

Driving ourselves to the ground, this broken patriarchy, if not addressed, can lead to mental disorders and suicide, which many eating disorders are a slow form of. This assumption leads one to sort out how to live softly and subtly in the harsh, challenging world. Woodman offers techniques to connect to an inner quietness and stillness of the soul in this loud, dehumanizing, technological time. She courageously showed in her being and her work what it takes to connect to one's inner terrain and let it guide the path forward.

To me, Woodman’s theory is radical, genius, and well-rooted in ancient ways humans have naturally navigated life⎯as dance, ritual, and the soul’s presence has since time immemorial been viewed as sacred contributions to wellness. Woodman gives me tools to assist myself and others in the challenges humans face, not just on the surface but on the deepest, most soulful parts. As a movement teacher and someone who is more kinesthetically oriented, dance therapy is like talk therapy for me because as I move, things work themselves out; in moving through sensations and energy, I can access revelation. I have always felt the body’s presence and the soul's participation lacking in our culture and many of the therapies and treatments I have received. It’s refreshing for me to learn of Woodman’s work, and I feel it will guide my studies and curiosities forward into how I can incorporate the body into my work as a therapist. I have been a yoga teacher for 20 years now, and understand ways that through psychotherapy and Woodman’s inspiration, I also can bring union to body and soul. I feel this process is essential to both my personal and professional growth.

References

Woodman, M. (1980). The owl was a baker's daughter. Inner City Books.
Woodman, M. (1985). The pregnant virgin: A process of psychological transformation. Inner City Books.

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