Works by
James Hillman
(Writer)
[1926 - ]

Suicide and the Soul (1964)
Soul and suicide are dominant issues of this new millennium; soul because it cannot be reduced to genes and chromosomes; suicide because it raises fundamental religious, political, and legal conflicts. As Hillman writes in the postscript to the second edition: "The individual consists of more than his or her personal individuality. Something besides 'myself' inhabits the soul, takes part in its life and has a say in its death . . . We need a . . . definition of self as the interiorization of community. Suicide, literally 'self-killing,' now would mean both a killing of community and involvement of community in the killing."

Pan and the Nightmare (1972)
"The Great God Pan is dead!" That cry supposedly resounded through the ancient world, heralding the end of paganism, its myths and its Gods, and the death of nature. In Pan and the Nightmare, Pan is brought back to life by following C.G. Jung's famous saying: "The Gods have become our diseases." Chapters on nightmare panic, on masturbation, rape and nympholepsy, on instinct and synchronicity, and on Pan's female loves show the Goat-God at work and at play in the dark drives and creative passions of our lives.

Loose Ends: Primary Papers in Archetypal Psychology (1975)
Examines the concepts of myth, insight, eros, body, and the mytheme of female inferiority. as well as the need for the freedom to imagine and to feel psychic reality.

Re-Visioning Psychology (1975)
This groundbreaking classic explores the necessity of connections between our life and soul and developing the main lines of the soul-making process.

Dream & the Underworld (1979)
In a deepening of the thinking begun in The Myth of Analysis and Re-Visioning Psychology, James Hillman develops the first new view of dreams since Freud and Jung.

Inter Views (1983) with Laura Pozzo
Author's most biographical and self-revealing book with extraordinary, yet practical accounts of active imagination, writing, daily work, and symptoms in their relation to love. The book is also a radical deconstruction of the interview form itself, even though one reads along as if in a coffee conversation with Hillman explaining his life and thought.

Anima: An Anatomy of a Personified Notion (1985)
A fascinating examination of the age-old idea of the feminine soul as a figure of imagination who both inspired and disturbs. From this book we watch how Jung conceived the anima notion in all its variety and then how Hillman interprets and extrapolates from the master. "Anima and Eros", "Anima and Feeling", "Anima and Soul", and "Anima and the Unknown" are some of the ten chapters filled with humor and insights. Features excerpts from the writing of C.G. Jung.

A Blue Fire (1989)
A vitally important introduction to the theories of one of the most original thinkers in psychology today, A Blue Fire gathers selected passages from many of Hillman's seminal essays on archetypal psychology.

The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: Poems for Men (1992), James Hillman, Michael Meade, and Robert W. Bly, eds.
Robert Bly, James Hillman, and Michael Meade challenge the assumptions of our poetry-deprived society in this powerful collection of more than 400 deeply moving poems from renowned artists including Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Theodore Roethke, Rainer Maria Rilke, Marianne Moore, Thomas Wolfe, Czeslaw Milosz, and Henry David Thoreau.

The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World (1992)
Two groundbreaking essays launch Archetypal Psychology in a new direction: toward the world. Hillman calls this "a depth psychology of extraversion"—a therapy beyond the consulting room and private relationships, opening the heart-felt connection to the world.

To restore the heart's courage and its imaginative power, the soul of the world needs the same attention that we have been giving to the soul of persons. There is a soul quality to all things in the environment, whether "natural" or "manmade." These essays show how to regain, and live of, heart and soul.

Healing Fiction (1994)
This book is Hillman’s main analysis of analysis. He asks the basic question, "What does the soul want?" With insight and humor he answers, "It wants fictions that heal."

Insearch: Psychology and Religion (1994)
Insearch has become one of the few enduring descriptions of therapy in its relation to religion. Hillman’s examples are fresh, his language easy, and the evident pleasure he takes in opening the great questions of soul make this book a basic teaching text, an introduction to psychotherapy, and a quoted reference in counseling and therapy.

Kinds of Power: A Guide to its Intelligent Uses (1995)
In the boldest expose on the nature of power since Machiavelli, celebrated Jungian therapist James Hillman shows how the artful leader uses each of two dozen kinds of power with finesse and subtlety. Power, we often forget, has many faces, many different expressions. "Empowerment," writes best-selling Jungian analyst James Hillman, "comes from understanding the widest spectrum of possibilities for embracing power." If food means only meat and potatoes, your body suffers from your ignorance. When your idea of food expands, so does your strength. So it is with power. "James Hillman," says Robert Bly, "is the most lively and original psychologist we have had in America since William James." In Kinds Of Power, Hillman addresses himself for the first time to a subject of great interest to business people. He gives much needed substance to the subject by showing us a broad experience of power, rooted in the body, the rnind, and the emotions, rather than the customary narrow interpretation that simply equates power with strength. Hillman's "anatomy" of power explores two dozen expressions of power every artful leader must understand and use, including: the language of power, control, influence, resistance, leadership, prestige, authority, exhibitionism, charisma, ambition, reputation, fearsomeness, tyranny, purism, subtle power, growth, and efficiency.

The Soul's Code: On Character and Calling (1997)
Plato and the Greeks called it "daimon," the Romans "genius," the Christians "guardian angel." Today we use the terms heart, spirit, and soul. To James Hillman, the acknowledged intellectual source for Thomas Moore's bestselling sensation Care of the Soul, it is the central and guiding force of his utterly compelling "acorn theory"--in which each life is formed by a unique image, an image that is the essence of that life and calls it to a destiny, just as the mighty oak's destiny is written in the tiny acorn.

In this new look at age-old themes, Hillman provides a radical, frequently amusing, and highly accessible path to realization through an extensive array of examples. He urges his readers to discover the "blueprints" particular to their own individual lives, certain that there is more to life than can be explained by genetics or environment. As he says, "We need a fresh way of looking at the importance of our lives."

The Force of Character And the Lasting Life (2000)
In his powerful bestseller The Soul's Code, James Hillman brilliantly illuminated the central importance of character to our spiritual and emotional lives. Now, in this magnificent new book, Hillman completes his exploration of character with a profound and revolutionary reflection on life's second half.

"Character requires the additional years," declares Hillman. "The last years confirm and fulfill character." Far from blunting or dulling the self, the accumulation of experience concentrates the essence of our being, heightening our individual mystery and unique awareness of life. Drawing on his grounding in Jungian psychology, Hillman explains here the archetypes and myths that govern the self's realignment in our final years.

A Terrible Love of War (2004)
War is a timeless force in the human imagination—and, indeed, in daily life. Engaged in the activity of destruction, its soldiers and its victims discover a paradoxical yet profound sense of existing, of being human. In A Terrible Love of War, James Hillman, one of today’s most respected psychologists, undertakes a groundbreaking examination of the essence of war, its psychological origins and inhuman behaviors. Utilizing reports from many fronts and times, letters from combatants, analyses by military authorities, classic myths, and writings from great thinkers, including Twain, Tolstoy, Kant, Arendt, Foucault, and Levinas, Hillman’s broad sweep and detailed research bring a fundamentally new understanding to humanity’s simultaneous attraction and aversion to war. This is a compelling, necessary book in a violent world.