“Dreams” is the title of the seminar I’ll be taking this weekend in Santa Barbara with Marion Woodman (a talk) and Steve Aizenstat.
Integration: Integrating a person’s inner life with her outer life in harmony and health has long been crucial, in my experience, for achieving eating disorder recovery. Regardless of the specific diagnosis: bulimia, anorexia, binge eating, compulsive-overeating – and all the possible associated behaviors, like cutting, shoplifting, over-exercising, over-scheduling, under-achieving, abusive and exploiting relationships greatly benefit from developing a healthy integration between mind, feelings and body.
Marion Woodman: Marion Woodman is one of the early writers in the field of eating disorders. She is a gifted Jungian analyst with a way of understanding and bringing healing opportunities to men and women and, from my perception of her, particularly to women with eating disorders.
I listened to her audio tape, "Dreams," many times and often recommend it to patients. Marion Woodman understands women and the language of dreams!
Dreams and Intuition as Integrating Forces: I plan to walk among the trees on the Pacifica campus, participate in the dream workshops throughout the days, speak and share with wonderful people, write down my own dreams, muse about the dreams of my patients and those collective dreams that speak for our culture. The nourishment from the people, place and theme I know will benefit my mind, heart and soul.
From this will come new and surprising integrative thoughts and feelings that are bound to appear somehow in my blog posts as well as the rest of my personal and professional life. If you care to join me in this experience, take note of your dreams this weekend. Write them down. We can share them next week on this blog and see where our dreams lead us.
More about Marion Woodman: Here’s a bit about the wonderful Marion Woodman (excerpt from the BodySoul Rhythms® Marion Woodman Foundation website https://www.mwfbodysoulrhythms.org/. Marion Woodman, LLD, DHL, PhD, initially trained as a teacher and taught English and drama until her early 40s when she traveled to Zürich to train as a Jungian analyst. Upon returning to Canada, she began her practice as a Jungian analyst in Toronto and London, Ontario.
Upon returning from Switzerland, Marion began lecturing and giving workshops as well as writing. Marion's work focused on the feminine, soul, the relationship to one's body and what she came to call "the conscious feminine." Marion's work was rooted in her own healing process. Guided by her own dreams and her own bodywork with the symbols from her dreams, she was able to touch into her own healing process.
Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Written by Joanna Poppink, MFT. Joanna is a psychotherapist in private practice specializing in eating disorder recovery, stress, PTSD, and adult development.
She is licensed in CA, AZ, OR, FL, and UT. Author of the Book: Healing Your Hungry Heart: Recovering from Your Eating Disorder
Appointments are virtual.
For a free telephone consultation, e-mail her at
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