50th Anniversary of Re-Visioning Psychology by James Hillman

Hillman’s Vital Contribution to Depth Psychology

Published in 1975 Re-Visioning Psychology was a challenge to many existing notions of psychology, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Hillman felt that modern psychology was psychology without Psyche, and his mission was to create a psychology with soul.

One of the most appealing aspects of how Hillman expressed his ideas is that although he is often taking a critical stance, putting psychotherapy itself (amongst many other things) 'on the couch' as it were, rather than coming across as curmudgeonly it all feels vitalised and refreshing. Hillman is often, and rightly in my view, praised for his enlivened intellect, and I have found his work deeply inspiring since well before I entered into training as a psychotherapist some 15 years ago. When I first discovered his work I was an art student, and beginning to immerse myself in the work of Carl Jung and others in the depth psychology tradition, whose words served to deepen creative engagement, rather than explain it away. Hillman's work appealed in large part due to his assertion that the primary mode of the psyche is image, and insistence on staying with the image instead of translating or interpreting it into something else.

• Learn more about Depth Psychology here

Hillman’s Early Life and Formation

Born in New Jersey in 1926, James Hillman studied English Literature in Paris, and gained a degree in Mental and Moral Science in Dublin. In 1953 he moved to Switzerland where he met Carl Jung and studied his works. By 1959 he had received his Phd from the University in Zurich, and also the Diploma in Jungian Analysis at the C.G.Jung Institute, of which he became Director of Studies. Hillman is generally categorised as a 'post-Jungian', a term referring to those who adopted the Analytical Psychology of Carl Jung , but he founded 'archetypal psychology' which became his own unique expression. He always saw himself as someone with more of an intellectual connection to Jung and his work, rather than a devotee, disciple, or heir to the Jungian inheritance.

Re-Visioning Psychology is the Cornerstone in a Body of Work That Continues to Inspire

Re-Visioning Psychology is perhaps his opus, but there are many other excellents pieces of work including; The Dream and the Underworld, Suicide and the Soul, Alchemical Psychology series, The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World. Whilst not one of my personal favourites, The Soul's Code (1997) found a wider audience, and was for a period amongst the New York Times best sellers.

A Reluctant Founder of a School

Never a fan of institutions, Hillman rejected the idea that archetypal psychology become a formal training or 'school'. Consequently his work has continued primarily through those directly inspired by his work, rather than taught by others in a diluted fashion. At time he felt disillusioned by aspects of the Jungian training in which he was immersed. As is his way, he considers there to be a problem with thinking about the path of becoming a therapist in terms of 'training', because it is "an athletic fantasy," typical of a culture obsessed by strength and growth, often through unconsidered repetition.

Informally through his own verve and spark, and the many he gradually inspired, the 'archetypal school' gained recognition and is now regarded as one of three primary branches of Analytical Psychology (this being the name given to Carl Jung's psychology, related to yet distinct from Freud's Psychoanalysis), according to Andrew Samuels in The Cambridge Companion to Jung.

The other primary modes of Jungian expression are generally understood as being classical, which kept more closely to Jung's original concepts and methods emphasising individuation, dream, archetypes, and the collective unconscious. Although Jung was a colossus in terms of research, breadth of knowledge, experience and vision, it's worth noting that as with other such powerful figures who exert a kind of gravitational force around them, he was significantly aided by the work of gifted collaborators, the most well known of which is Marie Louise Von Franz.

The developmental school emerged from England in the 1950's and was led by Michael Fordham, which as the name suggests places an emphasis upon early life experience, particularly influenced by the work of Melanie Klein, and the 'british school' of Object Relations. Therapeutically it would give primary consideration to relational elements such as transference and projection, and direct clinical application of theory rather than speculation on myth and the collective unconscious.

Hillman’s Trickster Spirit

A Hillman quote that springs to mind at this moment goes something like this...

"We can only have the ideas that our ideas allow us to have. So what we need are new ideas."

I'm sure I could quite easily look this up for a reference, or to find he never said anything of the kind, but regardless of accuracy I think these words suggests something characteristic of his work, even if only to my mind. You will find Hillman described at times as "mercurial", or a trickster figure, prone to saying one thing here, and something slightly contradictory there. Once I spoke to someone who was a friend of Hillman's, and he recalled this aspect of his character with fondness rather than exasperation. It would keep people on their toes, and encourage their independent thinking rather than simply believing what they heard.

Imaginal Psychology and Hillman’s Distinctive Vision

The imaginal realm (or mundus imaginalis, a term borrowed from the work of philosopher Henry Corbin on Sufi philosophy) is where soul and meaning reside. For Hillman, images are not mere representations of "real" events; they are the fundamental data of the psyche itself and possess an inherent reality. This is very different to the usual understanding of imagination as unreal, a fabrication of the mind. For the Sufi's this would be a kind of intermediate realm between the purely spiritual (invisible), and the physical world. The imaginal in this sense suggests that images make themselves known to us, rather than us 'making them up', which we could say would be a different kind of imagination. This element of images being primary is key to Hillman's archetypal psychology.

Of course, many of Hillman's ideas were not entirely his own original creations. Sometimes he receives criticism for embracing so little of Jung's work without either changing it, or making a case against certain elements of it. It has been suggested that it would be more fitting to describe archetypal psychology as imaginal psychology, partly to emphasise the fundamental nature of psyche and the primary method of archetypal psychology, and partly to distinguish it, because Hillman did not conceive of archetypes in exactly the same way Jung and classical Jungians use the term.

However, Imaginal might not have made an ideal choice either, as Peter Kingsley makes clear in crucial book Catafalque - Carl Jung and the end of Humanity. Although Hillman was inspired by Henry Corbin who coined the term 'imaginal', and the two were on personal terms at one point, Hillman's use of the word was not entirely what Corbin meant by it, much to his frustration. Perhaps that is something of a theme with Hillman. Soul, imaginal, archetype, self, ego. With all of these he had his own views which were sometimes quite distinct from the familiar Jungian usage, which both served to make his psychology alive and creative, but perhaps also muddied the waters at times too.

Hillman related a story around the death of Jung, perhaps it was to do with attending his funeral, where he felt a strong sense of a message coming to him that he must go his own way, and not be a follower.

Hillman's Critique of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

Hillman was both trained within the Jungian tradition and, in many ways, one of its most spirited critics. His critique of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis was not a rejection of depth or soul, but a challenge to the assumptions that had solidified around clinical practice. He questioned the idea that the purpose of therapy was to fix, correct, or improve the individual. For Hillman, this model was too narrow and too rooted in medical thinking. He argued that treating the psyche as something to be repaired reduces its complexity, its poetry, and its inherent multiplicity.

Where classical analysis often emphasised insight, development, and personal growth, Hillman invited a shift toward seeing symptoms, fantasies, moods, and disturbances as expressions of soul rather than errors in need of correction. He resisted the pathologising impulse of modern psychology and suggested that pathology itself contains meaning, style, and necessity. In his view, psyche expresses itself through images and symptoms, and these need to be approached imaginally rather than eliminated or normalised.

He also pushed against the overly personal focus of therapy. Instead of concentrating solely on the individual and their biography, Hillman encouraged attention to the wider world of myth, culture, politics, and imagination. The soul, he insisted, is not confined to private experience. It moves through art, dreams, relationships, place, and even collective crises. As such, therapy cannot be only about helping the individual become more functional within society. It must also attend to what the world itself is asking of us.

Hillman once wrote that psychology had become too rooted in the literal and the clinical. He called for a return to the poetic basis of mind and advocated for a therapy that listens to psyche on its own terms. His critique remains influential because it does not reject psychotherapy outright; rather, it expands its horizon, urging practitioners to remember that soul is spacious, unpredictable, and imaginative. A psychology worthy of it must be the same.

Key Themes in Hillman’s Archetypal Psychology

Images

"We sin against the imagination whenever we ask an image for its meaning, requiring that images be translated into concepts.....interpretations forget too that they are themselves fantasies induced by the image, no more meaningful than the image itself." p.39

For Hillman the psyche speaks foremost in images, not in concepts, diagnoses or purely personal narratives. Image is not merely a picture in the mind, but a mode of experiencing and a way of knowing. It draws us into relationship with something beyond our individual biography and invites us to imagine rather than explain.

In archetypal psychology, images are not to be interpreted away or translated into fixed meanings. They are to be followed, tended, and allowed to reveal their depth. Hillman encouraged therapists and individuals alike to stay close to the image, to ask what it wants, what it evokes, and what it is doing to the soul. This imaginal approach remains one of his most powerful and transformative contributions.

For example, Hillman says that in a dream in which a snake appears, traditional approaches will seek to interpret the snake, which invariably turns it into symbol for something else, perhaps a phallic symbol in this instance, according to that particular therapists preferred school of thought. What this does is get rid of the snake. Hillman, in his dictum of staying with the image, would encourage witnessing the snake. What does it look like, what is it doing, where is it going, what might it want? Allow the image to lead.

This is a working method that I often adopt in the therapy session. The meaning of an image is not fixed (if it has one), and that is something which might emerge from exploration of the image between us, within the relational setting of therapy. It is an understandable misconception that an Art Psychotherapist's role is to tell someone what their image 'means'.

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"We learn from the alchemical psychologists to let the images work upon the experimenter; we learn to become the object of the work—even an object, or objectified image, of the imagination. It is therefore less a matter of program than of attitude, of giving over to the images and cultivating them for their sake."

Soul

"Tradition teaches the spirit nourishes soul. Hillman's psychology attempts to bring abundant imagination to religion, philosophy, theology, spiritual practice, the intellectual life, language, and the spirited ways of everyday life so that they feed soul rather than starve it." - T.Moore in A Blue Fire, p.114

To help us understand how Hillman regarded soul, we can follow the guidance of Thomas Moore in his commentary to Hillman's work in A Blue Fire. For those who are not already familiar, these selected writings are where I would recommend beginning with Hillman's work.

"Because James Hillman is an advocate of soul, he often takes a position that is sharply critical of spirituality, especially the kind of spirituality that seeks to escape or transcend the pleasures and demands of ordinary earthly life...In ordinary usage spirit and soul are almost interchangeable. But the distinction is central for Hillman.

The modern world assumes a two-tiered reality: body and mind, or matter and spirit. Hillman reinstates the Neoplatonic view that soul is the "in-between" factor keeping mind in touch with body and matter with spirit. Fantasy and image make spirituality and material endeavors soulful." - Thomas Moore in A Blue Fire, p.112

Hillman famously insisted that psychology must return to the soul. Not the soul as a theological entity or metaphysical proposition, but the soul as a poetic and relational mode of being. To speak of soul is to acknowledge complexity, ambiguity, nuance and depth. My personal view, and how I approach therapy as an act of 'soul-making', is very much that soul can be both a distinct entity, a substance (in the spiritual sense), and refer to qualities and characteristics of being in the world.

Hillman’s soul is found in the cracks, the longings, the confusions, the beauties and difficulties that shape a life. He reminded us that soul is not something to be improved or perfected but something to be listened to and cared for. In this sense soul-making becomes a lifelong conversation, and therapy becomes a place where this conversation is honoured. He criticised spirituality for being transcendent, lofty, moving away from the world. If the spiritual goal is to ascend the peak, Hillman sees soul as the valley. Sometimes this is confusing to readers because many find that his writing often feels quite 'spiritual'. But perhaps that is the purpose. In seeking to distinguish soul and spirit, he does a service for both.

Hillman adopts this famous lines by the poet Keats as a "psychological motto."

"Call the world, if you please, the vale of soul-making. Then you will find out the use of the world." - Keats, in A Blue Fire, p.114

Elsewhere Hillman has illustrated the qualities and character of soul by saying it is akin to what we might implicitly understand by the terms soul food, or soul music. Equally, there is usually a shared understanding of what is meant when a place, artwork, or perhaps institution is described as possessing soul, Or inversely, that certain something is conspicuous by its absence, hence "soulless."

• Visit this blog post the learn about A Blue Fire, the selected writings of James Hillman.

Dream

Dreaming for Hillman was not a secondary or mysterious activity but a primary expression of psyche. Dreams are autonomous imaginal events that unfold according to their own logic. They are not messages to be decoded but realities to be experienced.

In contrast to models that treat dreams as symbolic puzzles or reflections of personal history, Hillman emphasised the dreamworld itself. The figures, creatures, landscapes and atmospheres of dreams are treated as presences with their own agency. Staying close to the dream image can revitalise therapy and open new possibilities for understanding one’s life.

Nature and Environment

Hillman repeatedly argued that psyche is not only inside us. Rather, psyche is in the world. The rivers, forests, mountains, weather patterns and animals all participate in psychic life. To speak of soul is to speak of a world ensouled.

In this sense ecological crisis is also a psychic crisis. When the world is flattened, exploited or stripped of meaning, our inner lives suffer. Hillman called for a psychology that recognises the soul of the world, not just the soul of the individual. This ecological dimension has become increasingly influential in contemporary depth psychology and eco therapy, often termed ecopsychology.

I have found much value in Hillman's writing on urban environments. This is an example of the importance he ascribed to pathologising, examining the human made world we inhabit to see where it may be sick; maybe it isn't me that crazy? The buildings, the street layout, the lighting. There are ways in which all of these can nourish, and ways in which they can be the antithesis of soul.

Beauty

Beauty, for Hillman, was never a superficial concern or an aesthetic afterthought. It was central to how psyche discloses itself. Beauty is a mode of knowing, a way in which the world reveals soul through colour, texture, proportion, harmony, and the felt sense that something is aligned with its own inner nature. In this sense beauty is neither decoration nor luxury, but a fundamental psychological reality.

Hillman insisted that psychology must rediscover beauty as a guiding principle. He believed that our images, dreams, fantasies and symptoms gain depth when approached through a sensibility that honours aesthetic perception. Beauty invites participation. It draws us in, slows us down, and restores a sense of value and presence in a world that often prioritises efficiency and usefulness. To attend to beauty is to attend to soul.

His emphasis on beauty also served as a challenge to mainstream psychology, which often privileges rational explanation, measurement and diagnosis. For Hillman, beauty offered a counterweight to literalism. It encouraged a poetic approach to life, one capable of perceiving significance where others might see only surface appearances. In this way beauty helps keep the imagination alive, and reconnects psychology to its roots in art, myth and the aesthetic body of the world.

Culture and Society

Hillman also challenged the idea that psychology should be limited to the private individual. Much of what troubles us, he argued, belongs not only to personal pathology but to culture itself. Economics, politics, architecture, education and technology all shape the conditions of soul.

Archetypal psychology urges us to look beyond the personal to the imaginal patterns at work in society. The figures that appear in myths and dreams also appear in institutions and collective life. For Hillman a psychologically informed culture requires imagination, beauty, multiplicity and a willingness to question dominant narratives. His cultural critique remains as relevant now as it was fifty years ago.

Recordings of James Hillman

Hillman is in fine form in these interviews. Whether one feels in accord with his ideas or not, he expressed himself with a verve and vigor that is refreshing to witness, and too seldom seen amongst psychologists, therapists, and academics. Clearly he was someone very much alive, and as he aged it seemed almost as though his energy increased. Aging was one of the many themes he had interesting ideas about, that in many ways it need not equal diminishment. A life lived brings character and wisdom to bear in the world. His criticism would be of our processed culture of vanity, which is anti-life. I recall him using the term 'white bread' to describe mainstream western culture's attempts at 'processing out' of life, all the elements which could make it most nutritious.

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Andrew Phillips is a Visual Artist, Psychotherapist, and Creative Mentor in south Wales.

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