James Hillman (1926-2011), a fierce critic of mainstream psychology and a challenger of many Jungian assumptions, was also, arguably, the most significant thinker and writer to have taken up Jungian psychology. He wrote over twenty books, including Pulitzer nominated Revisioning Psychology and the best-selling work, The Soul’s Code.
After an overview of Hillman’s ideas, this lecture will focus on his view of images and what he called the “poetic basis of mind.” With illustrations from the arts and culture, we will discuss Hillman’s use of terms such as “archetypal imagination” and “soul-making.” My intention is to demonstrate the way Hillman’s approach extends and amplifies Jung’s understandings.

Related Workshop:  Archetypal Cinema: Hillman and Film

GLEN SLATER, PH.D., has a background in both religious studies and clinical psychology. He teaches Jungian and archetypal psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, California. He edited and introduced the third volume of James Hillman’s Uniform Edition, Senex and Puer, as well as a volume of essays by Pacifica faculty, Varieties of Mythic Experience, and has contributed a number of articles to Spring journal and other Jungian publications—several in the area of Jung and film.