"James Hillman: An Artist of Psychology."

The work of James Hillman can feel both compelling and difficult to approach. His writing does not sit easily within conventional ideas of psychology, and often asks something different of the reader. Less a system to be understood, and more a way of seeing to be entered into.

This copy of A Blue Fire has been with me for the best part of twenty years. It was one of the first ‘psychology’ books I owned, and it has lived a life. The cover is worn, the pages marked by time and use. I suspect Hillman would have approved. He placed value on what shows the marks of experience. Lines on a face, signs that something has been lived rather than preserved.

At the time, I did not have much context for what I was reading. With Hillman’s project being the re-visioning of psychology, it did not occur to me that I was encountering something quite so radical. And yet, even then, something in the work resonated very strongly with me. Although I found parts of it difficult to grasp, there was also a sense that it illuminated aspects of experience in a way that felt both unfamiliar and strangely recognisable.

A Different Kind of Psychology

Had I encountered Hillman later, rather than being aided by greater psychotherapeutic understanding, I may actually have struggled more with what he was proposing.

In the prologue to A Blue Fire, Thomas Moore writes:

Hillman demands nothing short of a new way of thinking. He takes psychoanalysis out of the context of medicine and health… asking us to give up fantasies of cure, repair, growth, self-improvement, understanding, and wellbeing as primary motives for psychological work…

This is a significant shift. It moves psychology away from the idea of fixing what is wrong, and toward something more attentive to image, imagination, and the way experience presents itself.

Moore continues:

…He is more a painter than a physician, more a musician than a social scientist, more an alchemist than a traditional philosopher…

The Psyche as Image

To think of psychology in this way is to begin to approach the psyche less as a problem to be solved, and more as something to be encountered. Hillman’s work invites us to pay attention to images, moods, fantasies, and the subtle ways in which meaning appears. Not as things to be reduced or explained away, but as expressions of a deeper life of the soul.

This can feel unfamiliar at first because we are usually encouraged to seek clarity, resolution, and constant improvement. Hillman, by contrast, asks us to stay with complexity. To allow things to reveal themselves gradually, and sometimes obliquely.

This way of approaching the psyche sits within the broader field of depth psychology, but also challenges some of its assumptions. Rather than seeking to interpret or translate experience into fixed meanings, Hillman’s emphasis is often on staying close to the image itself, and allowing it to speak in its own language.

An Artist of Psychology

Reading his work with Thomas Moore’s description in mind, the idea of Hillman as an artist of psychology feels particularly apt. There is something in his writing that resembles the work of a painter or a poet. A sensitivity to nuance, to atmosphere, to the many layers contained within even the simplest experience.

Rather than offering a set of answers, his work opens a field of attention. One in which the task is not to arrive quickly at understanding, but to remain in relationship with what is being shown.

Psychology, Imagination, and Practice

This way of approaching the psyche has informed my own work, both in psychotherapy and creative mentoring. It offers a space to reflect on experience in a way that is not solely focused on change or resolution, but on deepening one’s relationship to what is already present.

If something in this way of thinking resonates with you, you are welcome to get in touch to explore this further.

It offers an alternative to approaches that focus primarily on change or resolution. Instead, the emphasis can be on deepening one’s relationship to experience, and allowing meaning to emerge gradually.

For some, this may resonate immediately. For others, it may take time. Hillman’s work is not always easy, but it can be quietly transformative in the way it shifts how we see ourselves and the world around us.

These ideas are explored more fully in my reflection on Re-Visioning Psychology, which marks the enduring influence of Hillman’s work.

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Andrew Phillips is a Visual Artist, Psychotherapist (HCPC registered), and Creative Mentor.

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