Author Lisa Marchiano remembers a cold winter day when she was a new mother, pushing her infant and toddler children in their stroller through Mt. Airy and their stroller getting stuck in tree roots popping up through the sidewalk. Awake with her kids since 4:30 a.m., she thought to herself that everything about motherhood felt so hard.

But then, another insight came: This is hard. And I’m changing, growing, as a result.

Later, Marchiano searched for a book about motherhood as a path to transformation and personal growth but didn’t find the book she was looking for. The insight she had that morning became the seed of what would become her first book, “Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself.”

The manuscript for “Motherhood” grew out of Marchiano’s dissertation, written as part of her training to become a Jungian analyst through the Philadelphia Jung Institute, a graduate training program for clinicians, based in the work of psychologist Carl Jung. Also known as depth psychology, Jungian analysis seeks to bring the unconscious to consciousness.

Although Marchiano remembers her mother reading Jung, she herself had little exposure to Jung’s ideas until she was 28. At that time, she was living in New York and working in a different field. When an important relationship ended, Marchiano experienced a “dark night of the soul” that led her to read a book by a Jungian analyst. When she and her husband moved to Philadelphia’s Fitler Square six years later in 2000, she was already hoping to apply to train as a Jungian analyst but assumed she would have to commute to New York to do so. Learning that Philadelphia had its own Jung Institute that met at the Ethical Society on Rittenhouse Square felt like a sign that she was indeed on the right path. The Institute offers the Philadelphia Jung Seminar, an eight-month introduction that draws clinicians and others from the Philadelphia area and beyond who are interested in depth psychology. After attending the seminar, Marchiano applied for training as an analyst, which meant more than eight years of training.

All the while, Marchiano was raising her children and never gave up on the dream of publishing her book about motherhood. From the first flash of discernment about motherhood as a transformational journey that arrived when her son was 6 months old, “Motherhood” finally became a published book when he was entering his final year of high school at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy.

During those years, as she established her Philadelphia-based private practice as an analyst, Marchiano’s commitment to writing intensified.

“I’ve always been a dabbler,” she said. “I’d try different things like knitting or gardening. But at some point, I realized … I wasn’t going to be a great knitter. If I wanted to be a writer, I needed to pack up other things.”

But while focusing on writing and her practice, Marchiano had yet another creative vision: developing a podcast with two friends she had met at the Philadelphia Jung Institute, Joseph Lee and Deborah Stewart, who also had established careers as Jungian analysts. She envisioned recording their conversations about a variety of topics through the lens of depth psychology and dream analysis.

“This Jungian Life,” started in 2018, has taken off and found a wide audience of listeners from around the world. To date, the podcast has had 26 million downloads. On each episode, Marchiano, Lee and Stewart discuss a variety of topics and also analyze a listener’s dream (listeners are able to submit a topic or a dream on the podcast’s website). The three close friends also have created Dream School, a program focused on understanding dream work, and also have collaborated on the new book on the subject, “Dreamwise.”

In 2024, Marchiano published another book, “The Vital Spark: Reclaim Your Outlaw Energies and Find Your Feminine Fire,” which focuses on the burdens of caretaking, responsibility and social expectations that cause women to bury essential parts of themselves under niceness. The topics and ideas for this book grew out of the struggles that she was hearing from women in her private practice, as they moved from the life stage of motherhood to exploring what comes next.

Marchiano now lives in Wyndmoor, having found a home that she and her husband chose in part because of its nearness to Chestnut Hill, where she enjoys walking and taking advantage of Germantown Avenue’s mix of cafes, shops, galleries and restaurants. Her career is now a blend of writing, podcasting and her private practice — all areas are in service of her goal of making the teachings of Jung more available to a wider audience.

“People are hungry for depth psychology,” she observed. “And dreams come nightly to everyone…dreamwork is something accessible for everyone.”

Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer is an author, educator and spiritual director who works 1:1 with people, helping them find their inner wisdom through words. She currently works as the director of virtual content and programs for Ritualwell. She writes a weekly Substack with creative prompts and spiritual practices called “Journey With the Seasons.” Find her work at gabriellekaplanmayer.com.