Author Guide · Jungian Psychology
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For more than twenty years Marion Woodman taught English at South Collegiate Institute in London, Ontario. In the early 1970s, on her husband’s sabbatical in England, she went into analysis with E. A. Bennet, a British colleague of Carl Jung; by 1979 she had her diploma from the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich. She was past fifty when her first book appeared with Inner City Books in Toronto, and her books became bestsellers in the 1980s. Her subject stayed the same for four decades: the feminine, addiction, and the link between psyche and body. This guide covers her ten key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 key books · 1980–2001 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Marion Woodman wrote ten key books between 1980 and 2001, four of them co-written. The best known are Addiction to Perfection (1982), The Pregnant Virgin (1985), Leaving My Father’s House (1992), Dancing in the Flames (1996, with Elinor Dickson) and Bone: Dying into Life (2000). Start with Addiction to Perfection, the book that made her name; read on for where the others lead.
Where to Start with Marion Woodman
If you want her defining book
→ Addiction to Perfection (1982) — compulsion and perfectionism read through Jung.
If you want women’s own stories
→ Leaving My Father’s House (1992) — three women’s journeys, with her commentary.
If you want myth and the dark goddess
→ Dancing in the Flames (1996) — from Kali to the Black Madonnas.
If you want her most personal book
→ Bone (2000) — her journal of two years with cancer.
10 Marion Woodman Books, in Order
The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter
Her first book, published by Inner City Books in Toronto in its Studies in Jungian Psychology series. It is a psychological study of eating disorders as a subject: its chapters deal with obesity, Jung’s association experiment, complexes, stress and Jung’s idea of psyche and body, read in terms of what she calls the repressed feminine.
Addiction to Perfection
Published by Inner City Books. Through case studies, dreams and myths it examines compulsion and perfectionism, and treats spiritual hunger as one of their roots; it presents the feminine principle as the way out. With The Pregnant Virgin it brought her an international readership.
The Pregnant Virgin
Published by Inner City Books. It continues her work on the feminine in both women and men, combining art, literature, religion and material from her analytic practice to describe psychological transformation as a process.
The Ravaged Bridegroom
Published by Inner City Books. It turns to the masculine side of a woman’s psyche and examines how patriarchy shapes a woman’s view of herself through her relationship with her inner masculine.
Leaving My Father’s House
Published by Shambhala. Three women, Kate Danson, Mary Hamilton and Rita Greer Allen, tell their own inner journeys, and Woodman uses them as maps towards the wholeness she calls “conscious femininity”.
Conscious Femininity
Published by Inner City Books. A collection of interviews given between 1985 and 1992, covering sexuality, creativity, relationships, addiction, healing, ritual and the environment.
Dancing in the Flames
Written with the Jungian analyst Elinor Dickson and published by Shambhala. It follows the figure of the Black or dark goddess, from Kali to the Black Madonnas, as a force of chaos, creativity, destruction and rebirth, and argues that her return signals readiness for a new level of consciousness.
The Maiden King
Written with the poet Robert Bly and published by Henry Holt. The two read an old Russian folktale, with Baba Yaga among its figures, and use its images to argue that men and women each need elements of the other to become whole.
Bone
Published by Viking Compass. In November 1993 she was diagnosed with uterine cancer; this is the journal she kept over the next two years of treatment, drawing on dreams, body work and both conventional and alternative medicine, and on coming to terms with life and death.
Coming Home to Myself
Written with Jill Mellick and published by Conari Press. A book of 365 short reflections, grouped around perfectionism, conscious femininity, the body and finding one’s own voice.
In What Order to Read Marion Woodman
Her books do not form a series, but they build on each other. The three early Inner City titles, from The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter to The Pregnant Virgin, set out her ideas with case material; the 1990s books widen them through women’s stories, myth and fairy tale; Bone turns them on her own illness.
If you start with Addiction to Perfection, go on to The Pregnant Virgin, which continues it. Conscious Femininity is the easiest way to hear her own voice, since it is made of interviews rather than analysis.
A reading path
1. Addiction to Perfection (1982)
2. The Pregnant Virgin (1985)
3. Conscious Femininity (1993)
4. Dancing in the Flames (1996)
5. Bone: Dying into Life (2000)
Everything Else Marion Woodman Published
Beyond the 10 key books: 2 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Audio and contributions
2
2 books · 2000–2001
- 2000Sitting by the Wellan audio teaching from Sounds True on bringing the feminine to consciousness through language, dreams and metaphor
- 2001The Art of Dreamingby Jill Mellick, with a foreword by Woodman
The years · 1928–2018
Quick facts about Marion Woodman
- Known for
- Marion Woodman is known for bringing Jungian psychology to the feminine, addiction and the body, in books first published by Inner City Books and in her BodySoul workshops.
- 1928
- Born in London, Ontario
- 2018
- Dies in London, Ontario, aged 89
- Born
- Marion Jean Boa, 15 August 1928, London, Ontario; her father was a minister
- Died
- 9 July 2018, London, Ontario
- Education
- English literature, University of Western Ontario; C. G. Jung Institute, Zurich (diploma 1979)
- First career
- High school English teacher for more than twenty years
- Co-founded
- The Ontario Association of Jungian Analysts, with Daryl Sharp and her brother Fraser Boa
- Married
- Ross Woodman, professor at the University of Western Ontario (died 2014)
- Archive
- OPUS Archives, Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara
The red mark is 1982: Addiction to Perfection, the book that brought her an international readership.
How Marion Woodman Writes: Psyche and Body
She writes as an analyst. Her early books mix case material and clients’ dreams with myth, fairy tale, literature and religious images, and read them all through Jung’s psychology. The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter uses Jung’s association experiment and his theory of complexes; later books, such as Dancing in the Flames and The Maiden King, are built around a single mythic figure or folktale.
What sets her apart from most Jungian writers is the body. She treated psyche and soma as two sides of one thing, and alongside the books she ran BodySoul workshops, based on the complementarity of body and soul, which took her themes to audiences around the world. Bone, her journal of two years of cancer treatment, applies the same attention to her own illness.
Her link to non-duality, put plainly, is her refusal of splits: between body and spirit, masculine and feminine, perfect and imperfect. In a 1987 interview with Parabola she called perfection “a patriarchal word that splits everything into contraries”, and said that “consciousness exists in matter”. Her aim was wholeness, the reunion of opposites that Jung described, rather than a mystical doctrine of unity. For the psychologist she built on, see Books by Carl Jung.
Frequently asked questions about Marion Woodman’s books
How many books has Marion Woodman written?
Ten key books, from The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter (1980) to Coming Home to Myself (2001); four of them were co-written. Besides these she recorded the audio teaching Sitting by the Well (2000) and wrote forewords and contributions to other books.
What are Marion Woodman’s books in order?
The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter (1980), Addiction to Perfection (1982), The Pregnant Virgin (1985), The Ravaged Bridegroom (1990), Leaving My Father’s House (1992), Conscious Femininity (1993), Dancing in the Flames (1996), The Maiden King (1998), Bone: Dying into Life (2000) and Coming Home to Myself (2001).
Where should I start with Marion Woodman?
Addiction to Perfection (1982), the book that made her name. If you prefer to hear her talk rather than analyse, try the interviews in Conscious Femininity (1993).
What is Marion Woodman’s most famous book?
Addiction to Perfection: The Still Unravished Bride (1982). Her obituaries also single out The Pregnant Virgin (1985) and Bone: Dying into Life (2000) as the books that brought her an international audience.
What is The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter about?
It is her first book (1980), a Jungian study of obesity and anorexia nervosa as psychological subjects. It draws on Jung’s association experiment, his theory of complexes and his idea of psyche and body, and links the conditions to what she calls the repressed feminine. It is a work of analytical psychology, not a guide to eating.
Did Marion Woodman write a book with Robert Bly?
Yes. The Maiden King: The Reunion of Masculine and Feminine (1998) is a reading of an old Russian folktale by Woodman and the poet Robert Bly.
What are BodySoul workshops?
The workshops Woodman developed on the complementarity of body and soul. They took the themes of her books to large audiences around the world.
Is there a film about Marion Woodman?
Yes. Marion Woodman: Dancing in the Flames (2009) is an 86-minute Canadian documentary directed by Adam Reid.
Is Marion Woodman still alive?
No. She was born on 15 August 1928 in London, Ontario, and died there on 9 July 2018, aged 89. Her husband, Ross Woodman, had died in 2014.
How is Marion Woodman connected to Carl Jung?
She was a Jungian analyst, trained at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, where she received her diploma in 1979, after analysis with E. A. Bennet, a British colleague of Jung. All her books work with Jung’s ideas of the unconscious, dreams, archetypes and the union of opposites.
Footnotes
- Marion Woodman — Wikipedia
- In Memoriam: Marion Woodman, 1928–2018 — Inner City Books
- Marion Woodman, 1928–2018 — IAAP
- Obituary Note: Marion Woodman — Shelf Awareness, 2018
- Worshipping Illusions: An Interview with Marion Woodman — Parabola
- Books by Marion Woodman — C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“For me, perfection is a patriarchal word that splits everything into contraries: black or white.”
— Marion Woodman, “Worshipping Illusions”, interview in Parabola (1987)
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