[b]HEALING FICTION]
James Hillman, 1983
Hillman presents a remarkable and radical conception of the purpose of psychoanalysis as process by which the desires of the soul are alllowed to find expression in language and narrative. Hillman equates the psyche with the soul and seeks to set out a psychology based without shame in art and culture. The goal is to draw soul into the world via the creative acts of the individual, not to exclude it in the name of social order. The potential for soulmaking is revealed in by psychic images to which a person is drawn and apprehends in a meaningful way; Indeed the act of being drawn to and looking deeper at the images presented creates meaning – that is, soul.
Hillman further suggests a new understanding of psychopathology. He stresses the importance of psychopathology to the human experience and replaces it out of a medical understanding into a poetic one. In this idea sickness is a vital part of the way the soul becomes known.
James Hillman, 1983
Hillman presents a remarkable and radical conception of the purpose of psychoanalysis as process by which the desires of the soul are alllowed to find expression in language and narrative. Hillman equates the psyche with the soul and seeks to set out a psychology based without shame in art and culture. The goal is to draw soul into the world via the creative acts of the individual, not to exclude it in the name of social order. The potential for soulmaking is revealed in by psychic images to which a person is drawn and apprehends in a meaningful way; Indeed the act of being drawn to and looking deeper at the images presented creates meaning – that is, soul.
Hillman further suggests a new understanding of psychopathology. He stresses the importance of psychopathology to the human experience and replaces it out of a medical understanding into a poetic one. In this idea sickness is a vital part of the way the soul becomes known.
Quote:
| Psychology must be gained for it is not given, and without psychological education we do not understand ourselves and we make our daimons suffer. Psychoanalysis is a work of imaginative tellings in the realm of poiesis, which means simply “making,” and which I take to mean making by imagination into words. Our work more particularly belongs to the rhetoric of poiesis, by which I mean the persuasive power of imagining in words, an artfulness in speaking and hearing, writing and reading. |
About the Author
JAMES HILLMAN's pioneering imaginative psychology will soon span five decades. It has entered cultural history, affecting lives and minds in a wide range of fields. For the creativity of his thinking, the originator of Archetypal Psychology and author of A TERRIBLE LOVE OF WAR, THE SOUL'S CODE, THE FORCE OF CHARACTER, RE-VISIONING PSYCHOLOGY, and THE MYTH OF ANALYSIS, has received many honors, including the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic. He has held distinguished lectureships at the Universities of Yale, Princeton, Chicago, and Syracuse, and his books have been translated into some twenty languages. MsSVig