About Marlene
Marlene Schiwy, Ph.D., is a writer, workshop leader, university instructor, Jungian counsellor, and Body Soul Writing mentor.
With extensive background in literature and writing, music and movement, soulwork has been the essence of her personal life and vocational calling. She published her first story and won a North American song-writing contest at the age of thirteen, and writing and music have been the pillars and passions of her life since that time.
After completing Marion Woodman’s Leadership Training program, she studied Jungian theory and analytic practice, and Authentic Movement at the International School for Analytical Psychology in Zurich from 2005-2007, until her dreams and individuation journey led her out of the institution and onto her own path of doing Jungian soulwork with individual clients. Along with a deep love for Jung’s depth psychology and Marion Woodman’s exploration of the Conscious Feminine, Marlene’s approach is influenced by James Hillman’s love of the image and Helen Luke’s work on story.
“On foot
I had to walk through the solar systems,
before I found the first thread of my red dress.
Already, I sense myself.
Somewhere in space hangs my heart,
sparks fly from it, shaking the air,
to other reckless hearts.”
Author of several books and a dozen essays and articles, Marlene received a Canada Council grant to work on a new book about her mother’s childhood during wartime Germany.
Marlene's Journey
Marlene taught English Literature, Creative Writing, and Women’s Studies for many years in London and New York, and has been teaching at the University of British Columbia’s Writing Centre since 2000. She has conducted writing workshops, Jungian study seminars, professional development seminars, and ongoing writing circles in Canada, the US, and Europe for close to three decades.
In New York Marlene studied Gestalt therapy and founded The Women’s Journal Workshop, while teaching in the City University and working with individual clients as a writing therapist. After returning to Vancouver in 2000, she created Body Soul Writing, the first university writing course in Canada to introduce expressive movement into the writing process. She completed Marion Woodman’s Leadership Training Program in 2004 and served on the Marion Woodman Foundation Teaching Faculty in 2005.
“One of the greatest gifts in life is to be able to share one’s passions and gifts with others. I feel grateful every day that I have been able to bring together my deepest, dearest passions – writing and literature, music and movement, the depth psychology of C.G. Jung, Marion Woodman, and James Hillman; nurturing community and working with small groups of soulful women at a deep level; tending the hearth and baking muffins – in order to follow my soul’s calling and do work that I love. ”
Marlene did extensive post-graduate studies at the International School for Analytical Psychology (ISAP) in Zürich from 2005-2007, and conducted a ten hour series of filmed interviews with Marion Woodman. In 2008 she introduced Body Soul Sundays, an intensive nine month Jungian expressive arts program of immersion in the mysteries of the deep feminine.
Her most recent offering is a series of residential Body Soul Writing Retreats that allow participants to sink into their own creative process in a beautiful retreat setting within a circle of kindred souls.
To all of her creative endeavors Marlene brings a unique blend of Jungian training and academic foundation, a lifelong love of the creative process, and her own intense and vibrant engagement with the ongoing alchemy of everyday life.
Soulwork has been the essence of Marlene’s life and the common ground among her various vocations as writer and musician, workshop leader and university professor, Jungian counsellor and lifelong spiritual wanderer. Along the way she has been privileged to work with hundreds of women committed to exploring their own soul journeys and creative gifts.