"James Hillman was an artist of psychology."

This is the opening sentence of Thomas Moore's prologue.

I thought that this book would make a good first post as I begin to describe some of the influences and inspirations for my work. This copy has been with me for the best part of twenty years, and it was one of the first 'psychology' books I owned. It is a little rough around the edges now, but I think Hillman would approve. He valued evidence of age, lines on a face, signs that life has been lived.

I remember not having a great deal of context for it at the first encounter, and with Hillman's project being the 're-visioning' of Psychology, it didn't occur to me at the time that I was in the presence of something quite so visionary. Although baffled by some themes, much of it seemed to illuminate aspects of my experience in very valuable ways.

Had I been encountering Hillman further down the line, I may have experienced more difficulty. Moore notes, "Hillman demands nothing short of a new way of thinking. He takes psychoanalysis out of the context of medicine and health, not only in the obvious ways, rejecting the medical model, but in subtle ways: asking us to give up fantasies of cure, repair, growth, self-improvement, understanding, and wellbeing as primary motives for psychological work. He is more a painter than a physician, more a musician than a social scientist, more an alchemist than a traditional philosopher...The elaborate psychological theory sketched in this collection of writings glistens with a strong tincture of Mercury.... Mercury is the god who reveals insight in the colours of a thing, in the surprise visages that appear when a thing is turned around and over and upside down."

Reading his work with that Thomas Moore quote in mind—James Hillman artist of psychology—seems very apt indeed.

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

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