Archetypal Studies

James Hillman & Archetypal Psychology —The Return of the Gods

Dr. Glen Slater

Winter 2025

James Hillman was a prominent post-Jungian thinker and writer who founded the depth psychological approach known as Archetypal Psychology. He built on Jung’s understanding of the archetypal background of the psyche and took the mythic imagination to be the primary means by which we may access this background. This made him, in many respects, the world’s most mythological psychologist.

This course is an introduction to Hillman’s work. It begins by examining the roots of his approach and engaging critical distinctions he makes between different styles of knowing that play a dominant role in psychology—old and new, spiritual and soulful, and monotheistic and polytheistic. We will then move to focus on the process he calls “soul-making,” which he understands to be the opus of psychological life. Hillman argues we make soul by cultivating images, which brings depth, eros, and divine play to the events and circumstances of life. He sets out these notions and other essential elements of his approach in his pivotal book, Re-Visioning Psychology, which will anchor the course. In the final weeks, we will apply his perspective to two pressing concerns of our day: our immersion in digital technology and our capitulation to large, abstract systems.