James Hillman's Archetypal Psychology and the Poetic Basis of Mind

Introduction: Hillman's Poetic Basis of Mind

James Hillman's "poetic basis of mind" encompasses all aspects of psychological work — theorizing, analyzing culture, and practicing therapy (Moore, 1989). Hillman's archetypal psychology and his "poetic basis of mind" take root in aesthetics and imagination as opposed to science. "By taking everything as poetry, Hillman frees consciousness from its thin, hard crust of literalism to reveal the depth of experience" (Moore, 1989).

Hillman has adopted a sharply critical stance toward psychologies such as biological psychology, behaviorism, and cognitive psychology. These psychologies share a scientific philosophy and practice. One of his main critiques is that they are too literal; fundamentally stated, they are psychologies that lack the very essence of psychology: soul. Hillman's initiative is to bring the soul back to the world of psychology — where he believes it belongs. For Hillman, the soul works in places like imagination and fantasy, myth and metaphor. Hillman states:

"Here I am working toward a psychology of soul that is based in a psychology of image. Here I am suggesting both a poetic basis of mind and a psychology that starts neither in the physiology of the brain, the structure of language, the organization of society, nor the analysis of behavior, but in the processes of imagination" (Hillman, 1976).

It is important, when trying to understand archetypal psychology, to know that it is not simply about the psychology of archetypes; the purpose of it is not to find themes in mythology and art and then locate those same themes in life (Moore, 1989). "Rather, the idea is to see every fragment of life and every dream as myth and poetry" (Moore, 1989). Hillman (1976) believes that archetypal psychology sees the image as the iconoclast, challenging "allegorical meanings" and "releasing startling new insights." He claims that it is the most unsettling or disturbing images in dreams and fantasies that people try to avoid discussing — precisely because they are so unsettling. Yet these are exactly the images that demand attention, for they are the ones that "break the allegorical frame of what we think we know about this person or that, this trait of ourselves or that" (Hillman, 1976). Hillman therefore suggests that the ugliest images are often the most valuable, "for they are the ones that restore a figure to its pristine power as a numinous person at work in the soul" (1976). In therapy, a psychologist may be working with a person who exhibits great paranoia. While psychoanalysts might see that paranoia as externalized destructiveness, archetypal psychologists would examine what the myths say and recognize the myth as a repository of the circumstances.

Depth Psychology and the Soul

Depth psychology has been around, Hillman (1976) suggests, since Heraclitus said: "You could not discover the limits of the soul (psyche), even if you traveled every road to do so; such is the depth (bathum) of its meaning (logos)." While depth psychology is considered a somewhat modern field, there is reason to believe that this ancient association of depth and soul by Heraclitus indicates that the soul has long been understood as something with depth rather than breadth or height (Hillman, 1976). Viewing the soul as something profoundly deep, it is only logical to think that at its depths there lurks a calling — a fantasy or an idea.

Depth refers to what lies below the surface of psychic manifestations such as behaviors, dreams, conflicts, and relationships. What is below the surface is some deep-seated fantasy or image system that cannot be reached by purely literal means. Depth psychology attempts to find what is hidden — or repressed — beyond the boundaries of society and consciousness. To take a literal approach to images and myths in fantasy and dreams is counterintuitive. Even a person capable of accessing these depths on their own would have no way of verbalizing or fully understanding the images encountered there.

Hillman (1996) suggests that other forms of psychology and therapy cast people as victims of their own lives. He posits that when we reduce our lives to something encoded in our chromosomes, the "sense of calling" that each of us carries in the depths of our souls is ignored. He claims that academic and scientific psychology does exactly that, stating: "The more my life is accounted for by what already occurred in my chromosomes, by what my parents did or didn't do, and by my early years now long past, the more my biography is the story of a victim" (Hillman, 1996).

The Acorn Theory: Character, Calling, and Fate

This framework reduces everything to discovering what is wrong with people — an alcoholic father, violence in the household, an unappealing personality characteristic. All of these can be blamed on external factors, leading the patient to conclude, "This is why I am the way I am — because all of these things were done to me." Such an approach makes people victims of their own existences and thus helpless in the world. Hillman's approach is instead centered on helping a person find his or her true calling — their "fate" — as well as uncovering their true character or "innate image" (Hillman, 1996). Together, these elements constitute what Hillman calls his "acorn theory" (1996).

In terms of putting Hillman's theories into therapeutic practice, it makes sense that looking at one's life as an expression of a calling — the destiny as a manifestation of a daimon — and approaching one's life "with imaginative sensitivity we give fictions, we might put a stop to the worry, the fever, and the fret of searching out causes" (Hillman, 1996).