Ancient Psychology, rooted in a very different ground from modern therapeutic thinking, held that the fate and character of each of us is born in mystery, that our individuality is so profound and so hidden that it takes more than a lifetime for identity to merge. Renaissance doctors said that the essence of each person originates as a star in the heavens. How different this is from the modern view that a person is what he makes himself to be.
It is the unfathomable mystery that is the very seed and heart of each individual. Care of the soul appreciates the mystery of human suffering and does not offer the illusion of a problem-free life. The uniqueness of a person is made up of the insane and the twisted as much as it is of the rational and normal. To approach this paradoxical point of tension where adjustment and abnormality meet is to move closer to the realization of our mystery-filled, star-born nature.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
James Hillman and archetypal psychology
Archetypal psychology is a polytheistic psychology, in that it attempts to recognize the myriad fantasies and myths (gods, goddesses, demigods, mortals and animals) that shape and are shaped by our psychological lives. The ego is but one psychological fantasy within an assemblage of fantasies. It is part of the Jungian psychology tradition and related to Jung's original Analytical psychology but is also a radical departure from it in some respects.
Whereas Jung’s psychology focused on the Self, its dynamics and its constellations (ego, anima, animus, shadow), Hillman’s Archetypal psychology relativizes and deliteralizes the ego and focuses on psyche, or soul, and the archai, the deepest patterns of psychic functioning, "the fundamental fantasies that animate all life."
Hillman (1975) sketches a brief lineage of archetypal psychology By calling upon Jung to begin with, I am partly acknowledging the fundamental debt that archetypal psychology owes him. He is the immediate ancestor in a long line that stretches back through Freud, Dilthey, Coleridge, Schelling, Vico, Ficino, Plotinus, and Plato to Heraclitus - and with even more branches yet to be traced.”
The development of archetypal psychology is influenced by Carl Jung's analytical psychology and Classical Greek, Renaissance, and Romantic ideas and thought. Indeed, Hillman’s influences are many, and include other artists, poets, philosophers, alchemists, and psychologists. One could easily include in this list Nietzsche, Heidegger, Henry Corbin, Keats, Shelley, Petrarch, and Paracelsus. Though all different in their theories and psychologies, they appear to be unified by their common concern for psyche.
Whereas Jung’s psychology focused on the Self, its dynamics and its constellations (ego, anima, animus, shadow), Hillman’s Archetypal psychology relativizes and deliteralizes the ego and focuses on psyche, or soul, and the archai, the deepest patterns of psychic functioning, "the fundamental fantasies that animate all life."
Hillman (1975) sketches a brief lineage of archetypal psychology By calling upon Jung to begin with, I am partly acknowledging the fundamental debt that archetypal psychology owes him. He is the immediate ancestor in a long line that stretches back through Freud, Dilthey, Coleridge, Schelling, Vico, Ficino, Plotinus, and Plato to Heraclitus - and with even more branches yet to be traced.”
The development of archetypal psychology is influenced by Carl Jung's analytical psychology and Classical Greek, Renaissance, and Romantic ideas and thought. Indeed, Hillman’s influences are many, and include other artists, poets, philosophers, alchemists, and psychologists. One could easily include in this list Nietzsche, Heidegger, Henry Corbin, Keats, Shelley, Petrarch, and Paracelsus. Though all different in their theories and psychologies, they appear to be unified by their common concern for psyche.
Minimalism
Less is more, less is better.
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post-World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Robert Morris, and Frank Stella. It is rooted in the reductive aspects of Modernism, and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract expressionism and a bridge to Postmodern art practices.
The terms have expanded to encompass a movement in music which features repetition and iteration, as in the compositions of Steve Reich, La Monte Young, Philip Glass, John Adams, and Terry Riley. (See also Postminimalism).
The term "minimalist" is often applied colloquially to designate anything which is spare or stripped to its essentials. It has also been used to describe the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett, the films of Robert Bresson, the stories of Raymond Carver, and even the automobile designs of Colin Chapman.
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features. As a specific movement in the arts it is identified with developments in post-World War II Western Art, most strongly with American visual arts in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with this movement include Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, Robert Morris, and Frank Stella. It is rooted in the reductive aspects of Modernism, and is often interpreted as a reaction against Abstract expressionism and a bridge to Postmodern art practices.
The terms have expanded to encompass a movement in music which features repetition and iteration, as in the compositions of Steve Reich, La Monte Young, Philip Glass, John Adams, and Terry Riley. (See also Postminimalism).
The term "minimalist" is often applied colloquially to designate anything which is spare or stripped to its essentials. It has also been used to describe the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett, the films of Robert Bresson, the stories of Raymond Carver, and even the automobile designs of Colin Chapman.
Marsilio Ficino
Two books by Marsilio Ficino:
The Platonic Theology
The Book of Life
The Platonic Theology is a visionary work and the philosophical masterpiece of Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), the Florentine scholar-philosopher-magus who was largely responsible for the Renaissance revival of Plato. A student of the Neoplatonic schools of Plotinus and Proclus, he was committed to reconciling Platonism with Christianity, in the hope that such a reconciliation would initiate a spiritual revival and return of the golden age. His Platonic evangelizing was eminently successful and widely influential, and his "Platonic Theology," translated into English for the first time in this edition, is one of the keys to understanding the art, thought, culture, and spirituality of the Renaissance. This is the fourth of a projected six volumes.
The Platonic Theology
The Book of Life
The Platonic Theology is a visionary work and the philosophical masterpiece of Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), the Florentine scholar-philosopher-magus who was largely responsible for the Renaissance revival of Plato. A student of the Neoplatonic schools of Plotinus and Proclus, he was committed to reconciling Platonism with Christianity, in the hope that such a reconciliation would initiate a spiritual revival and return of the golden age. His Platonic evangelizing was eminently successful and widely influential, and his "Platonic Theology," translated into English for the first time in this edition, is one of the keys to understanding the art, thought, culture, and spirituality of the Renaissance. This is the fourth of a projected six volumes.
Care of the soul
"Care of the Soul" by Thomas Moore
Moore's studies in Renaissance psychology, philosophy, and medicine contributed to the work.
Renaissance authors: Marsilio Ficino and Paracelsus
Jung said that every psychological problem is ultimately a matter of religion. He also said that the work begins and ends with Mercury. Mercury is the god of fictions and fabrications, of trickery, thievery, and sleight-of-hand.
A spiritual life of some kind is absolutely necessary for psychological health.
Fulfilling work, rewarding relationships, personal power, and relief from symptoms are all gifts of the soul.
Marsilio Ficino: The mind tends to go off on its own so that it seems to have no relevance to the physical world. At the same time, the materialistic life can be so absorbing that we get caught in it and forget about spirituality. What we need is soul, in the middle, holding together mind and body, ideas and life, spirituality and the world.
James Hillman (the founder of archetypal psychology)
Robert Sardello
Rafael Lopez-Pedraza
Patricia Berry
Alfred Ziegler
Cure of the soul: cura animarum.
the craft of life: techne tou biou (Plato)
We can be the curates or curators of our own souls, an idea that implies an inner priesthood and a personal religion. To undertake this restoration of soul means we ave to make spirituality a more serious part of everyday life.
The emotional complaints:
Emptiness
Meaninglessness
Vague depression
Disillusionment about marriage, family, and relationship
A loss of values
Yearning for personal fulfillment
A hunger for spirituality
All of these symptoms reflect a loss of soul and let us know that the soul craves.We yearn excessively for entertainment, power, intimacy, sexual fulfillment, and material things, and we think we can find these things if we discover the right relationship or job, the right church or therapy. But without soul, whatever we find will be unsatisfying, for what we truly long for is the soul in each of these areas. Lacking that soulfulness, we attempt to gather these alluring satisfactions to us in great masses, thinking apparently that quantity will make up for lack of quality.
"therapy" refers to service to the gods.(Socrates)
Apuleius (Roman writer): Everyone should know that you can't live in any other way than by cultivating the soul.
Epicurus: cultivating the simple pleasure.
Soul is nothing like ego(self). Soul is closely connected to fate, and the turns of fate almost always go counter to the expectations and often to the desires of the ego. Soul is the font of who we are, and yet it is far beyond our capacity to devise and to control. We can cultivate, tend, enjoy, and participate in the things of the soul, but we can't outwit it or manage it or shape it to the designs of a willful ego.
Care of the soul is not solving the puzzle of life; quite the opposite, it is an appreciation of the paradoxical mysteries that blend light and darkness into the grandeur of what human life and culture can be.
I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination.
---John Keats
Care of the soul is not a method of problem solving. Its goal is not to make life problem-free, but to give ordinary life the depth and value that come with soulfulness. The word care implies a way of responding to expressions of the soul that is not heroic and muscular. Cura means several things: attention, devotion, husbandry, adorning the body, healing, managing, being anxious for, and worshiping the gods.
"Soul" is not a thing, but a quality or a dimension of experiencing life and ourselves. It has to do with depth, value, relatedness, heart, and personal substance.
Care of the soul begins with observance of how the soul manifests itself and how it operates. We can't care for the soul unless we are familiar with its ways. Observation is a word from ritual and religion. It means to watch out for but also to keep and honor, as in the observation of a holiday. The -serv- in observation originally referred to tending sheep.
This definition of caring for the soul is minimalist. It has to do with modest care and not miraculous cure. Therapy sometimes emphasizes change so strongly that people often neglect their own natures and tantalized by images of some ideal normality and health that may always be out of reach. By trying to avoid human mistakes and failures, we move beyond the reach of soul.
James Hillman: The way through the world is more difficult to find than the way beyond it.
It is the soul that makes us human.
To feel and imagine may not sound like much. But in care of the soul there is trust that nature heals, that much can accomplished by not-doing.
Paracelsus (16th century physician): The physician is only the servant of nature, not her master. Therefore, it behooves medicine to follow the will of nature.
In caring for the soul, a symptom has its own will and that "curing" in some way means following that will.
Observance has considerable power.
Modern interventional therapy sometimes tries to solve specific problems and can therefore be carried out on a short-term basis. But care of the soul never ends.
Every ending is a beginning. The life of the soul is a continual going over and over of the material of life.
Storytelling is an excellent way of caring for the soul. It helps us see the themes that circle in our lives, the deep themes that tell the myths we live.
Taking an interest in one's own soul requires a certain amount of space for reflection and appreciation. A little distance allows us to see our own complexity. Love of the soul asks for some appreciation for its complexity.
Often care of the soul means not taking sides when there is a conflict at a deep level. It may be necessary to stretch the heart wide enough to embrace contradiction and paradox.
Moore's studies in Renaissance psychology, philosophy, and medicine contributed to the work.
Renaissance authors: Marsilio Ficino and Paracelsus
Jung said that every psychological problem is ultimately a matter of religion. He also said that the work begins and ends with Mercury. Mercury is the god of fictions and fabrications, of trickery, thievery, and sleight-of-hand.
A spiritual life of some kind is absolutely necessary for psychological health.
Fulfilling work, rewarding relationships, personal power, and relief from symptoms are all gifts of the soul.
Marsilio Ficino: The mind tends to go off on its own so that it seems to have no relevance to the physical world. At the same time, the materialistic life can be so absorbing that we get caught in it and forget about spirituality. What we need is soul, in the middle, holding together mind and body, ideas and life, spirituality and the world.
James Hillman (the founder of archetypal psychology)
Robert Sardello
Rafael Lopez-Pedraza
Patricia Berry
Alfred Ziegler
Cure of the soul: cura animarum.
the craft of life: techne tou biou (Plato)
We can be the curates or curators of our own souls, an idea that implies an inner priesthood and a personal religion. To undertake this restoration of soul means we ave to make spirituality a more serious part of everyday life.
The emotional complaints:
Emptiness
Meaninglessness
Vague depression
Disillusionment about marriage, family, and relationship
A loss of values
Yearning for personal fulfillment
A hunger for spirituality
All of these symptoms reflect a loss of soul and let us know that the soul craves.We yearn excessively for entertainment, power, intimacy, sexual fulfillment, and material things, and we think we can find these things if we discover the right relationship or job, the right church or therapy. But without soul, whatever we find will be unsatisfying, for what we truly long for is the soul in each of these areas. Lacking that soulfulness, we attempt to gather these alluring satisfactions to us in great masses, thinking apparently that quantity will make up for lack of quality.
"therapy" refers to service to the gods.(Socrates)
Apuleius (Roman writer): Everyone should know that you can't live in any other way than by cultivating the soul.
Epicurus: cultivating the simple pleasure.
Soul is nothing like ego(self). Soul is closely connected to fate, and the turns of fate almost always go counter to the expectations and often to the desires of the ego. Soul is the font of who we are, and yet it is far beyond our capacity to devise and to control. We can cultivate, tend, enjoy, and participate in the things of the soul, but we can't outwit it or manage it or shape it to the designs of a willful ego.
Care of the soul is not solving the puzzle of life; quite the opposite, it is an appreciation of the paradoxical mysteries that blend light and darkness into the grandeur of what human life and culture can be.
I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination.
---John Keats
Care of the soul is not a method of problem solving. Its goal is not to make life problem-free, but to give ordinary life the depth and value that come with soulfulness. The word care implies a way of responding to expressions of the soul that is not heroic and muscular. Cura means several things: attention, devotion, husbandry, adorning the body, healing, managing, being anxious for, and worshiping the gods.
"Soul" is not a thing, but a quality or a dimension of experiencing life and ourselves. It has to do with depth, value, relatedness, heart, and personal substance.
Care of the soul begins with observance of how the soul manifests itself and how it operates. We can't care for the soul unless we are familiar with its ways. Observation is a word from ritual and religion. It means to watch out for but also to keep and honor, as in the observation of a holiday. The -serv- in observation originally referred to tending sheep.
This definition of caring for the soul is minimalist. It has to do with modest care and not miraculous cure. Therapy sometimes emphasizes change so strongly that people often neglect their own natures and tantalized by images of some ideal normality and health that may always be out of reach. By trying to avoid human mistakes and failures, we move beyond the reach of soul.
James Hillman: The way through the world is more difficult to find than the way beyond it.
It is the soul that makes us human.
To feel and imagine may not sound like much. But in care of the soul there is trust that nature heals, that much can accomplished by not-doing.
Paracelsus (16th century physician): The physician is only the servant of nature, not her master. Therefore, it behooves medicine to follow the will of nature.
In caring for the soul, a symptom has its own will and that "curing" in some way means following that will.
Observance has considerable power.
Modern interventional therapy sometimes tries to solve specific problems and can therefore be carried out on a short-term basis. But care of the soul never ends.
Every ending is a beginning. The life of the soul is a continual going over and over of the material of life.
Storytelling is an excellent way of caring for the soul. It helps us see the themes that circle in our lives, the deep themes that tell the myths we live.
Taking an interest in one's own soul requires a certain amount of space for reflection and appreciation. A little distance allows us to see our own complexity. Love of the soul asks for some appreciation for its complexity.
Often care of the soul means not taking sides when there is a conflict at a deep level. It may be necessary to stretch the heart wide enough to embrace contradiction and paradox.
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