Insearch: Psychology and Religion (Jungian Classics Series) [Paperback]

James Hillman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1994 | Series: Jungian Classics Series (Book 2)

With this book JAMES HILLMAN returns psychotherapy to its basic calling: the care of the soul.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Insearch: Psychology and Religion is one of the few enduring descriptions of Jungian therapy in its relation to religion. In four insightful chapters (The Human Encounter, The Unconscious as Experience, The Inner Morality of the Shadow, and The Inner Feminine or Anima) James Hillman gives a comprehensive account of Jungian psychology. His examples are fresh, his language easy, and the evident pleasure he takes in opening the great questions of the soul make Insearch a basic text and seminal work, an introduction to psychotherapy and a consistently quoted reference for pastoral counseling. -- Midwest Book Review

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, and THE FORCE OF CHARACTER 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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Spring Publications, Inc; 2nd edition (October 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0882145126
• ISBN-13: 978-0882145129
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #565,647 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars don't start on Hillman here...., August 11, 2001

By 

Craig Chalquist, PhD, author of TERRAPSYCHOLO... (Bay Area, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Insearch: Psychology and Religion (Jungian Classics Series) (Paperback)

....even though this is an early book of his. Although well and clearly written, as all his books are (just reading his sentences can be a joy), he left behind many of its major premises long ago, a fact he recapitulates in a Postscript added in 1994.

For instance, in contrast to what this book presents:

1. "Soul" was a word he liked to use in the 60's, whereas now he talks about "psyche."

2. Soul here is to be explored by an "insearch" (as opposed to "research"), a turning within. Soul in the world is not mentioned--or as Hillman writes about himself with such a severe tone, "The author doesn't even get to the window."

3. What Jung called "the shadow" is also in the world, not just in us as a moral problem.

4. Soul is not something lost that must be found (the Christianistic premise, God forbid). It is evident everywhere, within and without, and most particularly within our symptoms.

5. Psyche is a "third" between matter and spirit. (I have to bark here. Hillman's notion of "spirit" is everything the mystics say isn't spiritual: order, literality, authority, mentality, rationality... But I'd agree that psyche is a third between matter and mind. Because all this senex stuff is mind, not spirit.)

Etc.

For students of Hillman and archetypal psychology, the book might make an excellent contrast between his very early and more traditional Jungian thought and his more radical, later, re-visioning psychological polytheism. Otherwise, you're better off with his later work: gems like THE DREAM AND THE UNDERWORLD, RE-VISIONING PSYCHOLOGY, INTER VIEWS, THE THOUGHT OF THE HEART AND SOUL OF THE WORLD, and THE SOUL'S CODE.