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Cent'anni di psicanalisi: E il mondo va sempre peggio
James Hillman e Michael Ventura si interrogano sugli obiettivi raggiunti dalla terapia psicanalitica a oltre un secolo dalla sua nascita e tracciano un bilancio di grande interesse. Sempre più persone vi si rivolgono per contrastare un crescente malessere, eppure nella società occidentale continuano a dilagare nevrosi, infelicità e paure. La psicoterapia ha dunque fallito? Come si può intervenire oggi perché possa tornare a essere efficace? A queste e altre domande risponde questo saggio irriverente e appassionato, che gli autori hanno voluto "informale, selvaggio, perfino divertente; unlibro che rischi, che trasgredisca le regole, che passi col rosso".
287 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
105 people are currently reading
2006 people want to read
About the author
James Hillman
175 books573 followersJames Hillman (1926-2011) was an American psychologist. He served in the US Navy Hospital Corps from 1944 to 1946, after which he attended the Sorbonne in Paris, studying English Literature, and Trinity College, Dublin, graduating with a degree in mental and moral science in 1950.
In 1959, he received his PhD from the University of Zurich, as well as his analyst's diploma from the C.G. Jung Institute and founded a movement toward archetypal psychology, was then appointed as Director of Studies at the institute, a position he held until 1969.
In 1970, Hillman became editor of Spring Publications, a publishing company devoted to advancing Archetypal Psychology as well as publishing books on mythology, philosophy and art. His magnum opus, Re-visioning Psychology, was written in 1975 and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Hillman then helped co-found the Dallas Institute for Humanities and Culture in 1978.
Retired into private practice, writing and traveling to lecture, until his death at his home in Connecticut on October 27, 2011 from bone cancer.
In 1959, he received his PhD from the University of Zurich, as well as his analyst's diploma from the C.G. Jung Institute and founded a movement toward archetypal psychology, was then appointed as Director of Studies at the institute, a position he held until 1969.
In 1970, Hillman became editor of Spring Publications, a publishing company devoted to advancing Archetypal Psychology as well as publishing books on mythology, philosophy and art. His magnum opus, Re-visioning Psychology, was written in 1975 and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Hillman then helped co-found the Dallas Institute for Humanities and Culture in 1978.
Retired into private practice, writing and traveling to lecture, until his death at his home in Connecticut on October 27, 2011 from bone cancer.
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March 22, 2015
The Industrial Revolution blew the lid off Pandora’s Box, releasing a poisonous whirlwind of evils into the world. Millions of rural people were herded into vast, filthy, disease-ridden cities to live among hordes of strangers, perform miserable work, and die young. It was pure hell, and many people snapped. Insane asylums began popping up like mushrooms, and the psychotherapy industry was born.
In Vienna, Freud kept busy treating hysterical Austrians, and Jung worked with “schizy” inmates at a Zürich asylum. They launched an insurgency against European Puritanism, a mindset that drove many out of their minds — desire was bad, and punctual, robotic conformity to a system of pleasure-free maximum productivity was the compulsory objective.
So, the first wave of psychotherapy was radical and rebellious, but a second wave that emerged in the ‘50s has been regressive. The new mode purported that newborns were pure, innocent, blank slates. Once born, the beautiful, helpless “inner child” was vulnerable to abuse from others that could knock it off balance, sometimes permanently.
In the therapy room, attention was focused on the patient’s past — a hunt for abuse that may have happened decades ago. Mental illness was usually the result of a screwed up childhood, and it was believed to reside within the patient. The endless bombardment of dark influences from the surrounding insane society was off the radar. The goal of mainstream therapy was helping wounded patients adapt to living in an insane society. Mainstream therapists now practice everywhere in America.
James Hillman (1926-2011) was a student of Jung, and once served as the director of the C. G. Jung Institute. Over the years, he became a vocal critic of modern psychotherapy. In his opinion, newborns were not blank slates, and they were not born whole and perfect — they were unique acorns with a calling and a destiny, tuned into the voices of their ancestors.
He thought that mainstream therapy was turning the educated middle class into docile plebes, trained to “cope (and not protest), to adapt (and not rebel) to… make it work for you (rather than refuse the unacceptable).” He strongly believed that the therapy room should become a cell of revolution. Patients needed to become involved in the insane world, and transform it into a healthier place for all life. Aim at the core of the problem, not the side effects.
Michael Ventura (born 1945) was a popular journalist for the trendy L.A. Weekly. He had abundant experience as a consumer of therapy. Mental illness was a significant theme in his family history. Most of the people he knew were either in therapy, practicing therapists, or both. At the same time, he saw that most marriages and relationships around him were dysfunctional to varying degrees. How could this be, at the zenith of human progress?
In 1990, he interviewed Hillman, and the article generated abundant buzz. This inspired them to do a book: We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy — And the World’s Getting Worse. It’s a scrapbook of interviews, conversations, and written correspondence, an informal jam session of passionate ideas. Their two minds soar and play, and the result is a stimulating duet. The book was published prior to the Prozac Revolution.
According the Jung, “individuation” was the ideal destination — the lifelong process of becoming more and more who you are. (He also said: “The most terrifying thing is to know yourself.”) Individuation involved throwing overboard the stuff that was not who you are. This shifted us from a realm of comfortable habits to unfamiliar territory, where growth was more likely to happen. When we strayed onto a path where we didn’t belong, our inner life force sent us clear warning messages, “symptoms” (anxiety, depression, etc.). Hillman said, “Only the unconscious can save us: in your pathology is your salvation.”
It’s wacky to help people adjust to living in an insane society, to stifle their healthy resistance, and encourage their submission. Hillman denounced “therapeutic Puritanism,” with its psychic numbing and sensual numbing. America had been anaesthetized by the Puritan mindset. “Just look at our land — this continent’s astonishing beauty — and then look at what we immigrants, Bibles in hand, priests and preachers in tow, have done to it.”
The authors linked the rise of mental illness to the rise of individualism and its shadows, alienation and oppression. For them, the psyche did not live inside the individual, the individual dwelled within the vast timeless collective psyche, like a fish in the ocean. In the good old days, life was tribal and communal. Spirituality embraced all sacred beings, animate and inanimate. Both feet were firmly planted in a stable sense of time and place. Life was rich with meaning, power, and beauty. Ventura suspected that “the quality of wholeness is not located in the individual but in a community that includes the environment.”
Christianism blindsided the ancient balance with its new concept of individual salvation. Suddenly, the creator of the entire universe was paying around-the-clock attention to ME — watching everything I did, continuously reading my mind, and remembering all of my errors.
Following Columbus, the disintegration of ancient balance went into warp drive. Europeans, their slaves, and the people they conquered were uprooted and scattered across the planet. The social glue of ancient cultures dissolved. “Nothing needed to be permanent anymore.”
In the last hundred years, life has gone totally crazy. Our sense of time and place has vaporized. Ventura called it “the avalanche.” We lived in an era of “simultaneous, massive changes on every level of life everywhere, that have built up unstoppable momentum as they speed us toward God knows where.” Obviously, we’re heading for disaster. “You can’t negotiate with an avalanche. Nothing, nothing, nothing is going to stop the shipwreck of this civilization.”
Understand that the world is not ending, just this pathological civilization. We should not regret its passing, but honor its death with song. The good news here is that “I” am not sick, my society is. The good news is that the sick society is busy dying, setting the stage for rebirth and renewal. Hillman: “Any major change requires a breakdown.” The next century or two may be rough, but it won’t last forever. “The only solution can come when the world is reanimated, when we recognize how alive everything is, and how desirable.”
What should we do? In a nutshell, two things are essential. (1) We cannot move toward healing without the power of imagination. Imagination allows us to break out of ruts, overcome barriers, and see farther, with greater clarity. It strengthens our ability to envision a healthier future. (2) Individualism is a toxic ball and chain, and we need to leave it behind, in the rubble of the past. We must remember community living and rejoin the family of life.
Ventura said it like this: “You don’t %@ around. You don’t waste your life trying to find a secure place in the avalanche, ‘cause their ain’t no such animal. You do the work of the soul.” He told his son, “If you wanted to volunteer for fascinating, dangerous, necessary work, this would be a great job to volunteer for — trying to be a wide-awake human during a Dark Age and keeping alive what you think is beautiful and important.”
In Vienna, Freud kept busy treating hysterical Austrians, and Jung worked with “schizy” inmates at a Zürich asylum. They launched an insurgency against European Puritanism, a mindset that drove many out of their minds — desire was bad, and punctual, robotic conformity to a system of pleasure-free maximum productivity was the compulsory objective.
So, the first wave of psychotherapy was radical and rebellious, but a second wave that emerged in the ‘50s has been regressive. The new mode purported that newborns were pure, innocent, blank slates. Once born, the beautiful, helpless “inner child” was vulnerable to abuse from others that could knock it off balance, sometimes permanently.
In the therapy room, attention was focused on the patient’s past — a hunt for abuse that may have happened decades ago. Mental illness was usually the result of a screwed up childhood, and it was believed to reside within the patient. The endless bombardment of dark influences from the surrounding insane society was off the radar. The goal of mainstream therapy was helping wounded patients adapt to living in an insane society. Mainstream therapists now practice everywhere in America.
James Hillman (1926-2011) was a student of Jung, and once served as the director of the C. G. Jung Institute. Over the years, he became a vocal critic of modern psychotherapy. In his opinion, newborns were not blank slates, and they were not born whole and perfect — they were unique acorns with a calling and a destiny, tuned into the voices of their ancestors.
He thought that mainstream therapy was turning the educated middle class into docile plebes, trained to “cope (and not protest), to adapt (and not rebel) to… make it work for you (rather than refuse the unacceptable).” He strongly believed that the therapy room should become a cell of revolution. Patients needed to become involved in the insane world, and transform it into a healthier place for all life. Aim at the core of the problem, not the side effects.
Michael Ventura (born 1945) was a popular journalist for the trendy L.A. Weekly. He had abundant experience as a consumer of therapy. Mental illness was a significant theme in his family history. Most of the people he knew were either in therapy, practicing therapists, or both. At the same time, he saw that most marriages and relationships around him were dysfunctional to varying degrees. How could this be, at the zenith of human progress?
In 1990, he interviewed Hillman, and the article generated abundant buzz. This inspired them to do a book: We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy — And the World’s Getting Worse. It’s a scrapbook of interviews, conversations, and written correspondence, an informal jam session of passionate ideas. Their two minds soar and play, and the result is a stimulating duet. The book was published prior to the Prozac Revolution.
According the Jung, “individuation” was the ideal destination — the lifelong process of becoming more and more who you are. (He also said: “The most terrifying thing is to know yourself.”) Individuation involved throwing overboard the stuff that was not who you are. This shifted us from a realm of comfortable habits to unfamiliar territory, where growth was more likely to happen. When we strayed onto a path where we didn’t belong, our inner life force sent us clear warning messages, “symptoms” (anxiety, depression, etc.). Hillman said, “Only the unconscious can save us: in your pathology is your salvation.”
It’s wacky to help people adjust to living in an insane society, to stifle their healthy resistance, and encourage their submission. Hillman denounced “therapeutic Puritanism,” with its psychic numbing and sensual numbing. America had been anaesthetized by the Puritan mindset. “Just look at our land — this continent’s astonishing beauty — and then look at what we immigrants, Bibles in hand, priests and preachers in tow, have done to it.”
The authors linked the rise of mental illness to the rise of individualism and its shadows, alienation and oppression. For them, the psyche did not live inside the individual, the individual dwelled within the vast timeless collective psyche, like a fish in the ocean. In the good old days, life was tribal and communal. Spirituality embraced all sacred beings, animate and inanimate. Both feet were firmly planted in a stable sense of time and place. Life was rich with meaning, power, and beauty. Ventura suspected that “the quality of wholeness is not located in the individual but in a community that includes the environment.”
Christianism blindsided the ancient balance with its new concept of individual salvation. Suddenly, the creator of the entire universe was paying around-the-clock attention to ME — watching everything I did, continuously reading my mind, and remembering all of my errors.
Following Columbus, the disintegration of ancient balance went into warp drive. Europeans, their slaves, and the people they conquered were uprooted and scattered across the planet. The social glue of ancient cultures dissolved. “Nothing needed to be permanent anymore.”
In the last hundred years, life has gone totally crazy. Our sense of time and place has vaporized. Ventura called it “the avalanche.” We lived in an era of “simultaneous, massive changes on every level of life everywhere, that have built up unstoppable momentum as they speed us toward God knows where.” Obviously, we’re heading for disaster. “You can’t negotiate with an avalanche. Nothing, nothing, nothing is going to stop the shipwreck of this civilization.”
Understand that the world is not ending, just this pathological civilization. We should not regret its passing, but honor its death with song. The good news here is that “I” am not sick, my society is. The good news is that the sick society is busy dying, setting the stage for rebirth and renewal. Hillman: “Any major change requires a breakdown.” The next century or two may be rough, but it won’t last forever. “The only solution can come when the world is reanimated, when we recognize how alive everything is, and how desirable.”
What should we do? In a nutshell, two things are essential. (1) We cannot move toward healing without the power of imagination. Imagination allows us to break out of ruts, overcome barriers, and see farther, with greater clarity. It strengthens our ability to envision a healthier future. (2) Individualism is a toxic ball and chain, and we need to leave it behind, in the rubble of the past. We must remember community living and rejoin the family of life.
Ventura said it like this: “You don’t %@ around. You don’t waste your life trying to find a secure place in the avalanche, ‘cause their ain’t no such animal. You do the work of the soul.” He told his son, “If you wanted to volunteer for fascinating, dangerous, necessary work, this would be a great job to volunteer for — trying to be a wide-awake human during a Dark Age and keeping alive what you think is beautiful and important.”
March 30, 2024
I’m fascinated by the fact that people in the DARK AGES lived among the RUINS of GREAT civilizations like ROME/GREECE.
Their ANCESTORS knew things that they DIDN’T.
And could do things that they COULDN’T.
Civilization had CLEARLY REGRESSED.
I had a similar feeling when I started training as a therapist.
It felt like I was inhabiting a scorched earth.
A smoldering battlefield.
Populated by the ghosts and bones of SLAIN GIENTS.
SIGMUND FREUD
CARL JUNG
WILHELM REICH
B F SKINNER
ALBERT ELLIS
MILTON ERICKSON
FRITS PEARLS
They were like a pantheon of DEAD GODS.
Who behaved OUTRAGEOUSLY.
And then GROWNUPS got involved.
And in the end, all we were left with was the SAFE but DEAD monotheism of ERIN BECK, CBT, the DSM and EBP.
Mostly for the BETTER.
But also equally FOR THE WORSE.
THEN FENTANYL CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN TRUMP CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN #MEETOO CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN BLM CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN COVID-19 CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN JAN 6th CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN CHAT-GPT CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN SORA CHANGED EVERYTHING
THE CRISIS SEEMS PERPETUAL
THE SUFFERING HAS GONE EXPONENTIAL
AND PSYCHOTHERAPY FEELS NAKEDLY INSUFFICIENT
IF CRISIS demands:
- Don’t just SIT THERE!
- DO SOMETHING!
BUT Psychotherapy DEMANDS:
- Don’t just DO SOMETHING!
- SIT THERE!
THEN WHAT?
We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy – and the World's Getting Worse is a long form dialog between James Hillman and Michael Ventura, published in 1992.
The book scrutinizes the effectiveness of psychotherapy over the past century, and asserts that despite the widespread adoption of therapeutic practices and perspectives, societal issues and anxieties have only intensified.
Again.
That was in 1992.
I think just about everyone would agree.
Societal issues and anxieties have CERTAINLY continued to intensify since then.
Like Pearl Harbor BEFORE.
9/11 drove a FIST into the AMERICAN bee hive.
And just like that.
We SUDDENLY went from the EROTIC/BANOBO- 1960’s era AGE OF AQUARIUS, to the VIGILANT KILLER BEE HIVE MIND of the new MILLENNIUM.
And, just as the ADVENT OF THE PILL AND LSD resurrected the BOHO/BANOBO of 1967 HAIDT STREET. And the NAKED TRUTH OF VIETNAM as seen from the shadow of the UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES of HITLER/STALIN, awakened the NAKED APE DAYS OF RAGE and RIOTS in the STREETS of CHICAGO during the 1968 DNC.
DJT, COVID-19, HARVY WEINSTEIN, GEORGE FLOYD, KETAMINE and TRANS GENDER LOVE seem to have WOKE THE KIDS AGAIN (thank god).
And just as the MOON SHOT let us see the world from space. MASS EXTINCTION, and AI force us the STARE off into empty space as the WORLD BURNS and TRUTH EXPIRES.
How can psychotherapy make a difference given the state of the world. Hillman and Ventura might not know. And they might not agree if they did. But they CERTAINLY would agree that psychotherapy NEEDS to ENGAGE the WORLD/SOUL.
Hillman asserts that PSYCHOTHERAPY needs to become a cell of REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE AND SOUL MAKING.
THE BOOK IS REMARKABLY PRECENT.
HILLMAN AND VENTURA SEEM TO HAVE PREDICTED ALL OF WHAT WERE CURRENTLY REELING FROM, and DEALING WITH, and ROLLING WITH, and HEALING FROM.
This book is a DIALOGUE.
And it POPS.
The authors RIFF.
They MERGE.
And the SUM ECLIPSES THE PARTS.
BY A BUNCH!
I’m amazed by this book.
I started the year with FAITH, HOPE and CARNAGE by Nick Cave and Sean O’Hagan.
The books are remarkably similar in that they are both POWERFUL DIALOGUES between AMAZING PEOPLE on DEEP TOPICS that COULD NOT BE MORE INTERESTING or IMPORTANT, at a time when we NEED WISDOM and HEART and SOUL like 2024 CALIFORNIA needed THAT ELNINO.
These books are over 20 years apart.
But they are like BOOK ENDS of SANITY
On a CRAZY FUCKING SHELF
I may be the only person in on the planet to have read both books. I hope not. But if so. I hope it doesn’t stay that way.
CRUCIALLY CRUCIAL CRITAL READING.
5/5
Their ANCESTORS knew things that they DIDN’T.
And could do things that they COULDN’T.
Civilization had CLEARLY REGRESSED.
I had a similar feeling when I started training as a therapist.
It felt like I was inhabiting a scorched earth.
A smoldering battlefield.
Populated by the ghosts and bones of SLAIN GIENTS.
SIGMUND FREUD
CARL JUNG
WILHELM REICH
B F SKINNER
ALBERT ELLIS
MILTON ERICKSON
FRITS PEARLS
They were like a pantheon of DEAD GODS.
Who behaved OUTRAGEOUSLY.
And then GROWNUPS got involved.
And in the end, all we were left with was the SAFE but DEAD monotheism of ERIN BECK, CBT, the DSM and EBP.
Mostly for the BETTER.
But also equally FOR THE WORSE.
THEN FENTANYL CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN TRUMP CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN #MEETOO CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN BLM CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN COVID-19 CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN JAN 6th CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN CHAT-GPT CHANGED EVERYTHING
THEN SORA CHANGED EVERYTHING
THE CRISIS SEEMS PERPETUAL
THE SUFFERING HAS GONE EXPONENTIAL
AND PSYCHOTHERAPY FEELS NAKEDLY INSUFFICIENT
IF CRISIS demands:
- Don’t just SIT THERE!
- DO SOMETHING!
BUT Psychotherapy DEMANDS:
- Don’t just DO SOMETHING!
- SIT THERE!
THEN WHAT?
We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy – and the World's Getting Worse is a long form dialog between James Hillman and Michael Ventura, published in 1992.
The book scrutinizes the effectiveness of psychotherapy over the past century, and asserts that despite the widespread adoption of therapeutic practices and perspectives, societal issues and anxieties have only intensified.
Again.
That was in 1992.
I think just about everyone would agree.
Societal issues and anxieties have CERTAINLY continued to intensify since then.
Like Pearl Harbor BEFORE.
9/11 drove a FIST into the AMERICAN bee hive.
And just like that.
We SUDDENLY went from the EROTIC/BANOBO- 1960’s era AGE OF AQUARIUS, to the VIGILANT KILLER BEE HIVE MIND of the new MILLENNIUM.
And, just as the ADVENT OF THE PILL AND LSD resurrected the BOHO/BANOBO of 1967 HAIDT STREET. And the NAKED TRUTH OF VIETNAM as seen from the shadow of the UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES of HITLER/STALIN, awakened the NAKED APE DAYS OF RAGE and RIOTS in the STREETS of CHICAGO during the 1968 DNC.
DJT, COVID-19, HARVY WEINSTEIN, GEORGE FLOYD, KETAMINE and TRANS GENDER LOVE seem to have WOKE THE KIDS AGAIN (thank god).
And just as the MOON SHOT let us see the world from space. MASS EXTINCTION, and AI force us the STARE off into empty space as the WORLD BURNS and TRUTH EXPIRES.
How can psychotherapy make a difference given the state of the world. Hillman and Ventura might not know. And they might not agree if they did. But they CERTAINLY would agree that psychotherapy NEEDS to ENGAGE the WORLD/SOUL.
Hillman asserts that PSYCHOTHERAPY needs to become a cell of REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE AND SOUL MAKING.
THE BOOK IS REMARKABLY PRECENT.
HILLMAN AND VENTURA SEEM TO HAVE PREDICTED ALL OF WHAT WERE CURRENTLY REELING FROM, and DEALING WITH, and ROLLING WITH, and HEALING FROM.
This book is a DIALOGUE.
And it POPS.
The authors RIFF.
They MERGE.
And the SUM ECLIPSES THE PARTS.
BY A BUNCH!
I’m amazed by this book.
I started the year with FAITH, HOPE and CARNAGE by Nick Cave and Sean O’Hagan.
The books are remarkably similar in that they are both POWERFUL DIALOGUES between AMAZING PEOPLE on DEEP TOPICS that COULD NOT BE MORE INTERESTING or IMPORTANT, at a time when we NEED WISDOM and HEART and SOUL like 2024 CALIFORNIA needed THAT ELNINO.
These books are over 20 years apart.
But they are like BOOK ENDS of SANITY
On a CRAZY FUCKING SHELF
I may be the only person in on the planet to have read both books. I hope not. But if so. I hope it doesn’t stay that way.
CRUCIALLY CRUCIAL CRITAL READING.
5/5
March 26, 2008
I read this while I was in the middle of getting my doctorate in clinical psychology. It was during a time that I was feeling irreverent and frustrated and I delighted in all the subversive ideas about psychotherapy. James Hillman is brilliant and brave. I recently re-read it and found it to be somewhat cynical and not completely informed, but still a stimulating read!
September 13, 2017
We've Had A Hundred Years of Psychotherapy And the World's Getting Worse is a tonic for the hundreds of pop-psyche books pouring out of publishing houses every year. The book consists mainly of letters between the authors, Michael Ventura and James Hillman. Ventura is a columnist for the L.A. Weekly and a novelist; Hillman is a scholar, writer, and psychologist who has written numerous books, including Re-Visioning Psychology and Dreams and the Underworld.
The book's first and last sections consist of conversations between Hillman and Ventura on subjects ranging from philosophy to psychoanalysis, aesthetics to acting, politics, existentialism, child abuse, inner child theory, romantic love, and much more.
Hillman contends psychotherapy has caused a decline in the political sense of Americans by making intelligent people too passive and introspective. The sensitive, intelligent people of the middle classes, he says, have been in therapy in the U.S. for thirty or forty years, "and during that time there's been a tremendous political decline in this country." It is questionable whether this decline can be solely ascribed to the influence of psychotherapy; however, Hillman's critique of psychotherapy rings true.
Psychotherapy, according to Hillman, by locating soul (Greek: psyche) inside of oneself, has contributed to a devaluation of architecture, aesthetics, art, urban planning--indeed, to the devaluation of the entire phenomenal world. The result of this is the soul-stifling ugliness we find all around us in urban America: misplaced freeways, ugly skyscrapers, ticky-tacky suburban tracts, and rampant urban sprawl.
A central tenet of many therapists and people who might loosely be categorized as among the Human Potential or New Age movements has been that if enough people raise their consciousness--through therapy, meditation, or some other consciousness-raising method--we'll have a better society, better schools, better buildings, and better people. Hillman claims this is false.
Our inner knowledge has gotten more subtle while our ability to deal with issues in the world has deteriorated. "Personal growth doesn't automatically lead to political results," he says. "Look at Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Psychoanalysis was banned for decades, and look at the political changes that have come up and startled everybody. Not the result of therapy, their revolutions. (7)"
Hillman also targets the Recovery movement. Quoting a Boston Globe article claiming that each week 200 types of 12-step recovery groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Overeater's Anonymous draw 15 million Americans to 500,000 meetings across the nation, Hillman asks:
Meanwhile, where are the small political meetings, the ward heelers of yesteryear? Where are the Irish, the Italian, the Polish groups--the little ethnic and neighborhood groups--who met about city power (yes, graft and nepotism too), but who came together to push politics? There was a common cause as well as self-advancement and protection (support). (137)"
Hillman is not saying there isn't a need for some of these recovery groups--or, for that matter, for psychotherapists. He does say, however, that "there is plenty for a recovery group to give their love to besides one another; there is the world. (138)" While these recovery groups foster togetherness, they do not constitute community, according to Hillman.
It isn't community. I'm there, everybody is there, in order to support me. "I have a terrible time with my smoking. And you do, too. And each of us is there to deal with my smoking problem.
...Now, a possibility of community does arise. The loyalty to that group is a very strong thing...People don't miss their groups...There is deep affection. But the focus of this "community" is still not on any communal activity. (208-9)"
Only a few generations ago, the word "recovery" carried a communal connotation, quite in contrast to the individualistic spirit it carries today.
During Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency, recovery meant dealing with one-third of a nation, which he said were ill fed, ill clothed, and ill housed. He invented the NRA, the National Recovery Act. With a little spin and a little shove, all the 500,000 recovery meetings going on each week all across the U.S.A. could turn from individualism to the body politic, recovering some of the political concern for the plight of the nation that necessitated recovery groups in the first place. As I see it, we cannot recover alone or even in support groups. We need communal recovery, recovery of communal feeling, and each group provides the nucleus of that feeling. (138)"
Hillman claims that another negative effect of psychotherapy is it's finding the source of present psychological symptoms in childhood, in faulty parenting, rather than seeing the symptom as the Soul's cry for meaning, here and now. Partly, this preoccupation with childhood comes from psychotherapy's assumption that we are born as blank slates, and hence innocent, and in the course of our upbringing, we lose our original innocence. But according to Hillman and Ventura, we are not born as blank slates; we are born with a destiny to fulfill, and we enter this world with a momentum of our own. We have an agenda from the start, albeit an unconscious one.
The child is to the adult as the acorn is to the oak tree. This notion of our being born innocent is part of what's behind the fascination both psychotherapy and the Recovery movement have with child abuse and the "inner child." Caring for one's "inner child" is all the rage now in America. And the obsession with child abuse may represent the shadow side of our collective abandonment of children to poverty, second-rate schools, illiteracy, unemployment and drug addiction.
This is a radical book. It questions many cherished beliefs of what Bernie Zilbergeld, in The Shrinking of America, called "the therapeutic sensibility." Yet while Hillman decries the mediocrity and tepid "adjustment" that so often seem to be the results of psychotherapy, his call is not for the elimination of psychotherapy but for raising it to a new, higher level. He sees psychotherapy more as a religious and artistic venture than a quasi-medical one; by adopting the medical model, as a science, psychotherapy gained popularity. And in Freud's day, psychotherapy even had a kind of "revolutionary idealism," challenging the repression of Victorian puritanism; but gradually, "[it] became more passive, boring, repetitive, even trivial. (157)"
This notion of psychotherapy as revolutionary and idealistic is debatable; by today's standards, Freud was certainly no idealist about human possibilities. But in contrast to the repressive Victorian attitudes of his time, his recognition of unconscious motivation and the importance of sexuality was revolutionary and idealistic. Yet ultimately, psychotherapy came up against the limits of both the medical model and Freud's own pessimistic philosophy.
Hillman wants to "reimagine therapy as a practice deriving from a poetic basis of mind. (156)" To do that, however, requires a total abandonment of the medical model, and a recognition of not only the cognitive and emotional but also the political roots of pathology.
If therapy imagines its task to be that of helping people cope (and not protest), to adapt (and not rebel), to normalize their oddity, and to accept themselves "and work within your situation; make it work for you" (rather than refuse the unacceptable), then therapy is collaborating with what the state wants: docile plebes. Coping simply equals compliance. Community mental health, with its pamphlets giving advice on every "dysfunction" from thumb sucking to cock sucking, actually serves to keep the people pacified and satisfied with their white bread. (156)"
We've Had A Hundred Years of Therapy is a provocative, dangerous, and high-spirited book. It joins a growing chorus of challenges to the psychotherapeutic orthodoxy which has grown up in the last couple generations. It should be read and studied by all sensitive, thoughtful Americans, especially those who are or have been in therapy.
The book's first and last sections consist of conversations between Hillman and Ventura on subjects ranging from philosophy to psychoanalysis, aesthetics to acting, politics, existentialism, child abuse, inner child theory, romantic love, and much more.
Hillman contends psychotherapy has caused a decline in the political sense of Americans by making intelligent people too passive and introspective. The sensitive, intelligent people of the middle classes, he says, have been in therapy in the U.S. for thirty or forty years, "and during that time there's been a tremendous political decline in this country." It is questionable whether this decline can be solely ascribed to the influence of psychotherapy; however, Hillman's critique of psychotherapy rings true.
Psychotherapy, according to Hillman, by locating soul (Greek: psyche) inside of oneself, has contributed to a devaluation of architecture, aesthetics, art, urban planning--indeed, to the devaluation of the entire phenomenal world. The result of this is the soul-stifling ugliness we find all around us in urban America: misplaced freeways, ugly skyscrapers, ticky-tacky suburban tracts, and rampant urban sprawl.
A central tenet of many therapists and people who might loosely be categorized as among the Human Potential or New Age movements has been that if enough people raise their consciousness--through therapy, meditation, or some other consciousness-raising method--we'll have a better society, better schools, better buildings, and better people. Hillman claims this is false.
Our inner knowledge has gotten more subtle while our ability to deal with issues in the world has deteriorated. "Personal growth doesn't automatically lead to political results," he says. "Look at Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Psychoanalysis was banned for decades, and look at the political changes that have come up and startled everybody. Not the result of therapy, their revolutions. (7)"
Hillman also targets the Recovery movement. Quoting a Boston Globe article claiming that each week 200 types of 12-step recovery groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Overeater's Anonymous draw 15 million Americans to 500,000 meetings across the nation, Hillman asks:
Meanwhile, where are the small political meetings, the ward heelers of yesteryear? Where are the Irish, the Italian, the Polish groups--the little ethnic and neighborhood groups--who met about city power (yes, graft and nepotism too), but who came together to push politics? There was a common cause as well as self-advancement and protection (support). (137)"
Hillman is not saying there isn't a need for some of these recovery groups--or, for that matter, for psychotherapists. He does say, however, that "there is plenty for a recovery group to give their love to besides one another; there is the world. (138)" While these recovery groups foster togetherness, they do not constitute community, according to Hillman.
It isn't community. I'm there, everybody is there, in order to support me. "I have a terrible time with my smoking. And you do, too. And each of us is there to deal with my smoking problem.
...Now, a possibility of community does arise. The loyalty to that group is a very strong thing...People don't miss their groups...There is deep affection. But the focus of this "community" is still not on any communal activity. (208-9)"
Only a few generations ago, the word "recovery" carried a communal connotation, quite in contrast to the individualistic spirit it carries today.
During Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency, recovery meant dealing with one-third of a nation, which he said were ill fed, ill clothed, and ill housed. He invented the NRA, the National Recovery Act. With a little spin and a little shove, all the 500,000 recovery meetings going on each week all across the U.S.A. could turn from individualism to the body politic, recovering some of the political concern for the plight of the nation that necessitated recovery groups in the first place. As I see it, we cannot recover alone or even in support groups. We need communal recovery, recovery of communal feeling, and each group provides the nucleus of that feeling. (138)"
Hillman claims that another negative effect of psychotherapy is it's finding the source of present psychological symptoms in childhood, in faulty parenting, rather than seeing the symptom as the Soul's cry for meaning, here and now. Partly, this preoccupation with childhood comes from psychotherapy's assumption that we are born as blank slates, and hence innocent, and in the course of our upbringing, we lose our original innocence. But according to Hillman and Ventura, we are not born as blank slates; we are born with a destiny to fulfill, and we enter this world with a momentum of our own. We have an agenda from the start, albeit an unconscious one.
The child is to the adult as the acorn is to the oak tree. This notion of our being born innocent is part of what's behind the fascination both psychotherapy and the Recovery movement have with child abuse and the "inner child." Caring for one's "inner child" is all the rage now in America. And the obsession with child abuse may represent the shadow side of our collective abandonment of children to poverty, second-rate schools, illiteracy, unemployment and drug addiction.
This is a radical book. It questions many cherished beliefs of what Bernie Zilbergeld, in The Shrinking of America, called "the therapeutic sensibility." Yet while Hillman decries the mediocrity and tepid "adjustment" that so often seem to be the results of psychotherapy, his call is not for the elimination of psychotherapy but for raising it to a new, higher level. He sees psychotherapy more as a religious and artistic venture than a quasi-medical one; by adopting the medical model, as a science, psychotherapy gained popularity. And in Freud's day, psychotherapy even had a kind of "revolutionary idealism," challenging the repression of Victorian puritanism; but gradually, "[it] became more passive, boring, repetitive, even trivial. (157)"
This notion of psychotherapy as revolutionary and idealistic is debatable; by today's standards, Freud was certainly no idealist about human possibilities. But in contrast to the repressive Victorian attitudes of his time, his recognition of unconscious motivation and the importance of sexuality was revolutionary and idealistic. Yet ultimately, psychotherapy came up against the limits of both the medical model and Freud's own pessimistic philosophy.
Hillman wants to "reimagine therapy as a practice deriving from a poetic basis of mind. (156)" To do that, however, requires a total abandonment of the medical model, and a recognition of not only the cognitive and emotional but also the political roots of pathology.
If therapy imagines its task to be that of helping people cope (and not protest), to adapt (and not rebel), to normalize their oddity, and to accept themselves "and work within your situation; make it work for you" (rather than refuse the unacceptable), then therapy is collaborating with what the state wants: docile plebes. Coping simply equals compliance. Community mental health, with its pamphlets giving advice on every "dysfunction" from thumb sucking to cock sucking, actually serves to keep the people pacified and satisfied with their white bread. (156)"
We've Had A Hundred Years of Therapy is a provocative, dangerous, and high-spirited book. It joins a growing chorus of challenges to the psychotherapeutic orthodoxy which has grown up in the last couple generations. It should be read and studied by all sensitive, thoughtful Americans, especially those who are or have been in therapy.
January 11, 2008
this book inspired my master's thesis, which was on the therapeutic value of putting your art into the world. a brilliant, fascinating book.
September 8, 2011
When I first saw this book, the title struck my attention immediately. I decided I had to read it on principle without knowing anything else about it. And it did not disappoint! Such refreshing honesty with penetrating accuracy. Leave it to a Jungian psychologist to write a book like this – this book is a great example of Jungian psychology in action from a couple of highly creative minds who are quite adept at tapping into our collective unconscious.
Does Hillman go off the deep end at times? Yes. Do I agree with every premise the authors write about? Certainly not. Do they have errors in their logic? Oh yeah. Are there parts where they lost me? Uh-huh. AND... Do they offer penetrating insight into the process of psychotherapy? Absolutely. Is this book a goldmine of ideas? Most definitely. And that's the real point of this book; not to solve problems, but to generate ideas.
Some of my absolute favorite topics: the acorn, respecting ideas for themselves, scholarship as fiction, incest within the psyche, and we don’t know anything.
Does Hillman go off the deep end at times? Yes. Do I agree with every premise the authors write about? Certainly not. Do they have errors in their logic? Oh yeah. Are there parts where they lost me? Uh-huh. AND... Do they offer penetrating insight into the process of psychotherapy? Absolutely. Is this book a goldmine of ideas? Most definitely. And that's the real point of this book; not to solve problems, but to generate ideas.
Some of my absolute favorite topics: the acorn, respecting ideas for themselves, scholarship as fiction, incest within the psyche, and we don’t know anything.
November 7, 2013
I wish that therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, or any helpers in training would read this book. Anyone involved in any institution, whether its marriage, academia, church, business, psychology, government, whatever, should question the basic myths of that institution and try to evolve them or live them more consciously. You can't really do that until you ask the hard questions though. Getting new ideas in your mind can help you ask the hard questions and this book is about ideas, not conclusions.
May 25, 2020
The one truly valuable insight in this book -- and it's a fine one -- is that therapy should not be in the business (emphasis on that word) of trying to cure people of having to adjust to a wretched society, which is impossible anyway; that the best therapy is to take what we normally turn inwards, outwards, for the sake of fixing the society that makes so many of us mad and half-mad.
Too bad this is all couched in a farrago of annoying free-associative blither 'n dither, with a ratio of about one good idea to five bad ones plus one truly stupid one. Read it anyway, but bring a shovel.
Too bad this is all couched in a farrago of annoying free-associative blither 'n dither, with a ratio of about one good idea to five bad ones plus one truly stupid one. Read it anyway, but bring a shovel.
October 21, 2023
Interesting claim that I was excited to dig into, but the book is quite underwhelming. The author keeps making bold claims without grounding them in evidence or good reasoning, and it gets quite annoying after a while.
February 12, 2024
some decent ideas; insufferable presentation. maybe it was pretty fresh for the time period; i don't know.
anyway, if i wanted to watch a couple of dudes going "yeah mannnnn" and getting high on their own generalizations, i would put on an episode of joe rogan instead
anyway, if i wanted to watch a couple of dudes going "yeah mannnnn" and getting high on their own generalizations, i would put on an episode of joe rogan instead
March 22, 2018
I find James Hillman to be most insightful and fearless in presenting truth as he sees it. Its the truth of an Outsider, who sees the dualistic dysfunction in our modern day institutions and values. It can be somewhat depressing to attend to his insight but if one can manage to do that it can lead to a liberating experience in opening towards self knowing. He is very clear about what has gone wrong in society and where it is leading the collective and the individuals.
July 22, 2020
I've been reading the works of James Hillman for over three decades now, and only upon reading this book have I come upon a satisfying way to describe the experience: the relation between Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Hillman is Road Runner, dashing about the landscape from valley floors to the high mesas without breaking a sweat and at breakneck speeds. I, of course, am Wile E. Coyote, chasing him around attempting to consume him, but always--always--failing. So why does Wile E. Coyote persist in his enterprise? It's obviously not for the calories he gains; he'd have starved long ago if he'd hoped to feed himself solely on Road Runner fare. Obviously, Wile E. has other sources of nutrition (he's slender but capable of mad dashes around Monument Valley). So I infer that Wile E. persists in his venture simply because he enjoys it (although, given his repeated failures, perhaps he could use a bit of psychotherapy). And I reach this conclusion with a sense of confidence because in this analogy, I'm Wile E. and I know that I "chase" Road Runner-Hillman for the sheer pleasure of it, to sight-see the landscape as he takes me up (but not too far up, into "the spirit") and down into "the vale of soul-making." Hillman is a 20th-21st-century shaman who can speak like a Greek philosopher, a Rennaisance magus, and a guy from Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he began his life. The speed at which Hillman can switch from the deep recesses of classical and Rennaisance culture to the contemporary American vernacular often proves mind-boggling (much like Road Runner's transitions). And sometimes, like Wile E., these transitions--about daimon, the "imaginal," the acorn--leave me hanging. Sometimes I'm following along and like Wile E. I pause, look down to check my bearings, and find there's no ground beneath me. And yet I persist. It's exhilarating.
In this work, Hillman engages in a dialogue with Los Angeles-based writer Michael Ventura, both in person and via letters. The dialogue is free-ranging and like most of Hillman's work, it ranges over a wide variety of ideas and images (and Hillman will note the etymological relation of the two terms). There is one over-arching theme to the conversations: the failure of much of psychotherapy to do much good in the world. Indeed, we could go so far as to say that both Hillman and Ventura suggest its not the individual who needs the couch so much as the world. To whatever extent that individuals are messed-up, the environment in which they live and work and love is even more messed-up. The personal isn't the political, but the political is personal. Taking action in the world is a part of the cure; one can't live in a despoiled environment (physical, cultural, political) and not suffer a despoiled psyche. Of course, nothing in Hillman's work is quite so simple and direct as I've just summarized it, but that's a part of the joy in reading this series of dialogues. Hillman constantly points, questions, prods, and ponders, which, I imagine, makes him a compelling therapist. On the other hand, if you're looking for answers, programs, or blueprints, forget it; he won't do it. And, again as I imagine a good therapist would do, he makes you, the reader-patient, do your own heavy lifting.
To conclude this consideration of the book, and of Hillman, in particular, I offer the following quotations from the book. Hillman speaks best for himself. The following quotations are a few of those that happened to grab me, ideas and observations that engaged me. Enjoy and ponder.
We've had 100 years of analysis, and people are getting more and more sensitive, and the world is getting worse and worse. Maybe it's time to look at that. We still locate the psyche inside the skin. You go inside to look at the psyche you examine your feelings and your dreams, they belong to you. Words interelations, inter-psyche, between your psyche and mine. That's been extended a bit into family systems and office groups – but the psyche, the soul, is still only within and between people. We're working on our relationships constantly and our feelings and reflections, but look what's left out of that.
What's left out is the deteriorating world.
So why hasn't therapy noticed that? Because psychotherapy is only working on the "inside" soul. By removing the soul from the world and not recognizing that the soul is also in the world, psychotherapy can't do the job anymore. The buildings are sick. Institutions are set, the banking system is sick, the schools, the streets – the sickness is out there. (3-4)
N.B. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from James Hillman and not his conversation partner, Michael Ventura.
Put this in italics so nobody can just pass it over: This is not to deny that you need to do need to go inside – but we have to see what we're doing when we do that. By going inside we are maintaining the Cartesian view that the world out there is dead matter and the world inside is living. (12)
. . . .
I won't except the simple opposites – either individual self in control or a totalitarian, mindless mob. This kind of fantasy keeps us afraid of community. It locks us up inside our separate selves all alone and longing for connection. In fact, the idea of surrendering to the fascist mob is the result of the separate self. It's the old Apollonian ego, aloof and clear, panicked by the Dionysian flow. (43)
. . . .
Kenosis [from the Greek for emptying out; used in Christian theology in reference to Jesus emptying out the divine within himself to become fully human] seems now the only political way to be – emptied out of certainty. Otherwise, you've become a fundamentalist united with an almighty ideology, protected from above by a cause. Therapy is just one more of the current ideologies keeping its believers from the panic of kenosis, the panic that comes with the higher structure of guarantees has collapsed. Therapy becomes a salvational ideology.
But I want to stay with politics with this letter. I could compare kenosis with the emptiness in Buddhist thought and the Zen exercises of emptying and the Oriental aesthetics of pottery and painting. But I'd rather connect kenosis with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Kenosis is a form of action--not mashochistic action, victimized, crucified, beaten with lathi stickes and billy clubs. Protest. (103)
. . . .
Kenosis puts the emptiness in a new light. It values the emptiness. It says “empty protest“ is a via negativa, a non-positivist way of entering the political arena. You take your outrage seriously, but you don’t force yourself to have answers. Trust your nose. You know what stinks. Don’t try to replace the helpless frustration you feel, the powerless victimization, by working out a rational answer. The answers will come, if they come, when they come, to you, to others, but don’t fill in the emptiness of the protest with positive suggestions before their time. First, protest! I don’t know what should be done about most of the major political dilemmas, but my God Prince my soul, my heart, my skin, my eyes) stinks, But my gut (my soul, my heart, my skin, my eyes) sinks, weeps, crunches, shakes. It’s wrong, simply wrong, what’s going on here. (104)
. . . .
Yet, to the question “What would you have done with Sadam Hussein in August 1990, in October, in January and February, wiseguy?“ I am only my physical sense of something wrong. Only my empty protest. Therapy blocks this kind of protest.… It does not let these “negative“ emotions have their full say. And I value them, analyze them, but therapy insists that they have to lead us into deeper meaning rather than immediate action. Therapy says, Think before you act, feel before you emote, judge, interpret, imagine, reflect. Self-knowledge is the point of the emotions and the protest, not public awareness. Know thyself; know what you are doing before you know the issue, and know the meaning of an action before you act. Otherwise you’re projecting and acting out.
So, therapy would say, you can’t protest in this empty way because you haven’t made clear what the protest really wants and why and what for. It has to mean something.
An empty protest, however, hasn’t got a defined meaning. It doesn’t have an end goal – not even the end of blocking something it protests about. My protest about the Gulf War doesn’t clearly say, “Stop the war!“ Empty protest is protest for the sake of the emotions that fuel it and is rooted not in the conscious fulfillment of improvement, but in radical negativity. And theological language, empty protest as a ritual of negative theology. It’s what the Hindus call neti, neti, neti – not this, not this, not this. No utopia, no farther shore toward which we march, only the march, the shout, the placard, the negative vote, the refusal.
What I’m suggesting here can’t even become a new motive conscientious objection because the C.O. must back up his position with a set of positive ideals (not taking life, all war is evil, peace, human community). It’s not even anarchism, for an anarchist has a positive goal of the literal ending of our governmental forms. It is not libertarianism, which again has a positive set of beliefs that can be put in the programs of deregulating and dismantling.
What could be more unpopular than empty protest? Not only will you be seen as stupid because empty, but you will also be alone in right field and ninth in the batting order. I find it very hard to play the political game without falling into the usual American popularity contest, the public opinion poll. How does one enter the public fray and at the same time be unpopular? By this I mean I don’t even have the honor of standing for the oppositional unpopular position like a Mencken, Chomsky, Jerry Brown, Ventura. You, Michael [Ventura] can be counted on to define an unpopular position but never truly an empty one. Your protests have beef. We read you to hear the “wrong“ thing, whereas I want is to be applauded! Yet I am often roundly cursed (when understood) or, worse, approvingly smelted into someone else’s arguments (because misunderstood). (104; 105-106.)
. . . . .
Puritanism is no joke. It is the structural fiber of America; it’s in our writing, our wiring, or anatomy. And, if Freud is right that anatomy is destiny, then we all dissent from the Mayflower. Then there’s no hope for an aesthetic awakening. I can’t overcome Lifton’s “psyching numbing“ because it’s ground is puritanism. We are supposed to be sensually numb. That is the fundamental nature of puritan goodness. We are numb because we are anaesthetized, without aesthetics, aesthetically unconscious, beauty repressed. Just look at our land--this continent’s astonishing beauty--and then look at what we immigrants, Bibles in hand, priests and preachers in tow, have done to it. Not despoiling, not exploitation, not he profit motive; no, as a people we are void of beauty and devoted to ugliness.
Yes we each know that nothing so moves the soul as an aesthetic leap of the heart at the sight of a fox in the forest, of a lovely open face, the sound of a little melody. Sense, imagination, pleasure, beauty are what the soul longs for, knowing innately that these would be its secure.
Instead our motto is “just say no.“ And we pass laws to make everything “clean“ and “safe“-- childproof, tamperproof, fallproof, bugproof. Start each meal with a preop prep--iced and chlorinated water to numb the tongue, lips, and palate. Laws to protect children in a moving vehicle so they can be kept alive to be ignored, scolded, and homeless. Laws for order, once the inherent cosmos (the Greek word for aesthetic order) of the world is no longer sensed. This is the promised land, and the laws are still coming down from the hill. Prohibition is the ultimate law of the land. Watch school kids of eleven and twelve debate on TV whether or not to turn in a friend of his parents for smoking on the sly, because smoking is bad for the friend's health. Is this friendship or is this espionage for the sake of the law? (130-131)
. . . .
Critics of the American style of mind from de Tocqueville in the early nineteenth century on down have said this is not a land of ideas. We are superb at implementing, and making useful (practical?) Inventions, but we are not philosophers. Europeans think and American apply. The major psychological ideas with which we practice come from Europe. . . . (One of my own great difficulties is due to the many years I spent in Switzerland, so that I never quite made a comfortable connection with the American way of psychology.) I have never offered a testable hypothesis, applied for research grant, produced a program, found a gadget or a procedure that could be named after me, invented a “practical" test, elaborated an experimental model, or examined a particular population. I work mainly in a chair thinking, on my feet talking, in the library reading; it all goes on in my head while my body lives life. In this way, my work can be accused of being a head trip and not practical, because we believe, in America, that the head's activities--this head so full of blood and flushed with excitement of spirit—is not practical. But it’s not the mind that’s impractical or heady; it’s the burned out, ashen, conceptual language of academia and television that we have all been taught is the correct expression of thinking. It’s this neutral, flatline language that is heady, not the impassioned head, popping ideas like grasshoppers. (141)
. . . .
One thing is sure: ideas don’t belong to academics. You don’t have to have academic knowledge to have ideas. Knowledge might help work with an idea, enrich it, discriminate it more finely, or recognize its history – that it’s not the first time that idea ever moved through someone’s mind. So knowledge may save you the embarrassment of inflation and help you pick up some skills about polishing ideas. But knowledge is not necessary. You can distinguish things you have learned from ideas you have. Keeping these distinct – knowledge and ideas – ought to help you feel that you can ideate without an academic degree. When an idea comes to mind, it asks first of all to be listened to and that you attempt to understand it. If knowledge helps do this, then fine. But first entertain your visitor. (144)
N.B. Compare what Hillman says above with Hannah Arendt's distinction between knowledge and thinking (and implicitly "ideas") that she considered very thoroughly in her work The Life of the Mind: Thinking (1977). I find their respective ideas track closely.
. . . .
How [can] we evaluate an idea? Is the idea fertile, fecund? Does it make you think? Is it surprising, shocking? Does it stop you up from habits and bring a spark of reflection?
In this work, Hillman engages in a dialogue with Los Angeles-based writer Michael Ventura, both in person and via letters. The dialogue is free-ranging and like most of Hillman's work, it ranges over a wide variety of ideas and images (and Hillman will note the etymological relation of the two terms). There is one over-arching theme to the conversations: the failure of much of psychotherapy to do much good in the world. Indeed, we could go so far as to say that both Hillman and Ventura suggest its not the individual who needs the couch so much as the world. To whatever extent that individuals are messed-up, the environment in which they live and work and love is even more messed-up. The personal isn't the political, but the political is personal. Taking action in the world is a part of the cure; one can't live in a despoiled environment (physical, cultural, political) and not suffer a despoiled psyche. Of course, nothing in Hillman's work is quite so simple and direct as I've just summarized it, but that's a part of the joy in reading this series of dialogues. Hillman constantly points, questions, prods, and ponders, which, I imagine, makes him a compelling therapist. On the other hand, if you're looking for answers, programs, or blueprints, forget it; he won't do it. And, again as I imagine a good therapist would do, he makes you, the reader-patient, do your own heavy lifting.
To conclude this consideration of the book, and of Hillman, in particular, I offer the following quotations from the book. Hillman speaks best for himself. The following quotations are a few of those that happened to grab me, ideas and observations that engaged me. Enjoy and ponder.
We've had 100 years of analysis, and people are getting more and more sensitive, and the world is getting worse and worse. Maybe it's time to look at that. We still locate the psyche inside the skin. You go inside to look at the psyche you examine your feelings and your dreams, they belong to you. Words interelations, inter-psyche, between your psyche and mine. That's been extended a bit into family systems and office groups – but the psyche, the soul, is still only within and between people. We're working on our relationships constantly and our feelings and reflections, but look what's left out of that.
What's left out is the deteriorating world.
So why hasn't therapy noticed that? Because psychotherapy is only working on the "inside" soul. By removing the soul from the world and not recognizing that the soul is also in the world, psychotherapy can't do the job anymore. The buildings are sick. Institutions are set, the banking system is sick, the schools, the streets – the sickness is out there. (3-4)
N.B. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from James Hillman and not his conversation partner, Michael Ventura.
Put this in italics so nobody can just pass it over: This is not to deny that you need to do need to go inside – but we have to see what we're doing when we do that. By going inside we are maintaining the Cartesian view that the world out there is dead matter and the world inside is living. (12)
. . . .
I won't except the simple opposites – either individual self in control or a totalitarian, mindless mob. This kind of fantasy keeps us afraid of community. It locks us up inside our separate selves all alone and longing for connection. In fact, the idea of surrendering to the fascist mob is the result of the separate self. It's the old Apollonian ego, aloof and clear, panicked by the Dionysian flow. (43)
. . . .
Kenosis [from the Greek for emptying out; used in Christian theology in reference to Jesus emptying out the divine within himself to become fully human] seems now the only political way to be – emptied out of certainty. Otherwise, you've become a fundamentalist united with an almighty ideology, protected from above by a cause. Therapy is just one more of the current ideologies keeping its believers from the panic of kenosis, the panic that comes with the higher structure of guarantees has collapsed. Therapy becomes a salvational ideology.
But I want to stay with politics with this letter. I could compare kenosis with the emptiness in Buddhist thought and the Zen exercises of emptying and the Oriental aesthetics of pottery and painting. But I'd rather connect kenosis with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Kenosis is a form of action--not mashochistic action, victimized, crucified, beaten with lathi stickes and billy clubs. Protest. (103)
. . . .
Kenosis puts the emptiness in a new light. It values the emptiness. It says “empty protest“ is a via negativa, a non-positivist way of entering the political arena. You take your outrage seriously, but you don’t force yourself to have answers. Trust your nose. You know what stinks. Don’t try to replace the helpless frustration you feel, the powerless victimization, by working out a rational answer. The answers will come, if they come, when they come, to you, to others, but don’t fill in the emptiness of the protest with positive suggestions before their time. First, protest! I don’t know what should be done about most of the major political dilemmas, but my God Prince my soul, my heart, my skin, my eyes) stinks, But my gut (my soul, my heart, my skin, my eyes) sinks, weeps, crunches, shakes. It’s wrong, simply wrong, what’s going on here. (104)
. . . .
Yet, to the question “What would you have done with Sadam Hussein in August 1990, in October, in January and February, wiseguy?“ I am only my physical sense of something wrong. Only my empty protest. Therapy blocks this kind of protest.… It does not let these “negative“ emotions have their full say. And I value them, analyze them, but therapy insists that they have to lead us into deeper meaning rather than immediate action. Therapy says, Think before you act, feel before you emote, judge, interpret, imagine, reflect. Self-knowledge is the point of the emotions and the protest, not public awareness. Know thyself; know what you are doing before you know the issue, and know the meaning of an action before you act. Otherwise you’re projecting and acting out.
So, therapy would say, you can’t protest in this empty way because you haven’t made clear what the protest really wants and why and what for. It has to mean something.
An empty protest, however, hasn’t got a defined meaning. It doesn’t have an end goal – not even the end of blocking something it protests about. My protest about the Gulf War doesn’t clearly say, “Stop the war!“ Empty protest is protest for the sake of the emotions that fuel it and is rooted not in the conscious fulfillment of improvement, but in radical negativity. And theological language, empty protest as a ritual of negative theology. It’s what the Hindus call neti, neti, neti – not this, not this, not this. No utopia, no farther shore toward which we march, only the march, the shout, the placard, the negative vote, the refusal.
What I’m suggesting here can’t even become a new motive conscientious objection because the C.O. must back up his position with a set of positive ideals (not taking life, all war is evil, peace, human community). It’s not even anarchism, for an anarchist has a positive goal of the literal ending of our governmental forms. It is not libertarianism, which again has a positive set of beliefs that can be put in the programs of deregulating and dismantling.
What could be more unpopular than empty protest? Not only will you be seen as stupid because empty, but you will also be alone in right field and ninth in the batting order. I find it very hard to play the political game without falling into the usual American popularity contest, the public opinion poll. How does one enter the public fray and at the same time be unpopular? By this I mean I don’t even have the honor of standing for the oppositional unpopular position like a Mencken, Chomsky, Jerry Brown, Ventura. You, Michael [Ventura] can be counted on to define an unpopular position but never truly an empty one. Your protests have beef. We read you to hear the “wrong“ thing, whereas I want is to be applauded! Yet I am often roundly cursed (when understood) or, worse, approvingly smelted into someone else’s arguments (because misunderstood). (104; 105-106.)
. . . . .
Puritanism is no joke. It is the structural fiber of America; it’s in our writing, our wiring, or anatomy. And, if Freud is right that anatomy is destiny, then we all dissent from the Mayflower. Then there’s no hope for an aesthetic awakening. I can’t overcome Lifton’s “psyching numbing“ because it’s ground is puritanism. We are supposed to be sensually numb. That is the fundamental nature of puritan goodness. We are numb because we are anaesthetized, without aesthetics, aesthetically unconscious, beauty repressed. Just look at our land--this continent’s astonishing beauty--and then look at what we immigrants, Bibles in hand, priests and preachers in tow, have done to it. Not despoiling, not exploitation, not he profit motive; no, as a people we are void of beauty and devoted to ugliness.
Yes we each know that nothing so moves the soul as an aesthetic leap of the heart at the sight of a fox in the forest, of a lovely open face, the sound of a little melody. Sense, imagination, pleasure, beauty are what the soul longs for, knowing innately that these would be its secure.
Instead our motto is “just say no.“ And we pass laws to make everything “clean“ and “safe“-- childproof, tamperproof, fallproof, bugproof. Start each meal with a preop prep--iced and chlorinated water to numb the tongue, lips, and palate. Laws to protect children in a moving vehicle so they can be kept alive to be ignored, scolded, and homeless. Laws for order, once the inherent cosmos (the Greek word for aesthetic order) of the world is no longer sensed. This is the promised land, and the laws are still coming down from the hill. Prohibition is the ultimate law of the land. Watch school kids of eleven and twelve debate on TV whether or not to turn in a friend of his parents for smoking on the sly, because smoking is bad for the friend's health. Is this friendship or is this espionage for the sake of the law? (130-131)
. . . .
Critics of the American style of mind from de Tocqueville in the early nineteenth century on down have said this is not a land of ideas. We are superb at implementing, and making useful (practical?) Inventions, but we are not philosophers. Europeans think and American apply. The major psychological ideas with which we practice come from Europe. . . . (One of my own great difficulties is due to the many years I spent in Switzerland, so that I never quite made a comfortable connection with the American way of psychology.) I have never offered a testable hypothesis, applied for research grant, produced a program, found a gadget or a procedure that could be named after me, invented a “practical" test, elaborated an experimental model, or examined a particular population. I work mainly in a chair thinking, on my feet talking, in the library reading; it all goes on in my head while my body lives life. In this way, my work can be accused of being a head trip and not practical, because we believe, in America, that the head's activities--this head so full of blood and flushed with excitement of spirit—is not practical. But it’s not the mind that’s impractical or heady; it’s the burned out, ashen, conceptual language of academia and television that we have all been taught is the correct expression of thinking. It’s this neutral, flatline language that is heady, not the impassioned head, popping ideas like grasshoppers. (141)
. . . .
One thing is sure: ideas don’t belong to academics. You don’t have to have academic knowledge to have ideas. Knowledge might help work with an idea, enrich it, discriminate it more finely, or recognize its history – that it’s not the first time that idea ever moved through someone’s mind. So knowledge may save you the embarrassment of inflation and help you pick up some skills about polishing ideas. But knowledge is not necessary. You can distinguish things you have learned from ideas you have. Keeping these distinct – knowledge and ideas – ought to help you feel that you can ideate without an academic degree. When an idea comes to mind, it asks first of all to be listened to and that you attempt to understand it. If knowledge helps do this, then fine. But first entertain your visitor. (144)
N.B. Compare what Hillman says above with Hannah Arendt's distinction between knowledge and thinking (and implicitly "ideas") that she considered very thoroughly in her work The Life of the Mind: Thinking (1977). I find their respective ideas track closely.
. . . .
How [can] we evaluate an idea? Is the idea fertile, fecund? Does it make you think? Is it surprising, shocking? Does it stop you up from habits and bring a spark of reflection?
December 28, 2021
Sometimes it is good to pick up a book based on the title alone.
It's a transcribed and edited dialogue between a psychotherapist (Hillman) and a novelist (Ventura) talking about Gott und die Welt, but the main focus is how criticism on how psychotherapy focuses only on the individual, so therapists can't do much if the society itself is ill. If everybody's getting therapy in order to fix them, why are things getting worse? That echoes Erich Fromm's The Sane Society, which had a similar main point.
They go further than Fromm, in that they criticise psychotherapy for taking away political energy. You see the state of the world, you get angry, so you get a therapist to help you work through these problems. What you should do however, is take that anger and transform it into political action, to go out and fix things. "This thing’s bigger than me.” That’s the child archetype talking. “All I can do is go into myself, work on my growth, my development, find good parenting, support groups.” This is a disaster for our political world, for our democracy. Democracy depends on intensely active citizens, not children." I think Stoicism is undergoing a revival for similar reasons - don't fix what's out there, just fix your own reaction to the downfall.
Since this is a transcribed dialogue over several evenings Hillman and Ventura drift off often - some quotes:
[...]
[...]
Hihgly recommended if you're into sociological philosophers/cultural anthropologists like Erich Fromm or Ernest Becker.
It's a transcribed and edited dialogue between a psychotherapist (Hillman) and a novelist (Ventura) talking about Gott und die Welt, but the main focus is how criticism on how psychotherapy focuses only on the individual, so therapists can't do much if the society itself is ill. If everybody's getting therapy in order to fix them, why are things getting worse? That echoes Erich Fromm's The Sane Society, which had a similar main point.
Because psychotherapy is only working on that “inside” soul. By removing the soul from the world and not recognizing that the soul is also in the world, psychotherapy can’t do its job anymore. The buildings are sick, the institutions are sick, the banking system’s sick, the schools, the streets—the sickness is out there.
They go further than Fromm, in that they criticise psychotherapy for taking away political energy. You see the state of the world, you get angry, so you get a therapist to help you work through these problems. What you should do however, is take that anger and transform it into political action, to go out and fix things. "This thing’s bigger than me.” That’s the child archetype talking. “All I can do is go into myself, work on my growth, my development, find good parenting, support groups.” This is a disaster for our political world, for our democracy. Democracy depends on intensely active citizens, not children." I think Stoicism is undergoing a revival for similar reasons - don't fix what's out there, just fix your own reaction to the downfall.
But those feelings are not only due to poor relationship; they come also because you’re not in any kind of political community that makes sense, that matters. Therapy pushes the relationship issues, but what intensifies those issues is that we don’t have (a) satisfactory work or (b), even more important perhaps, we don’t have a satisfactory political community. You just can’t make up for the loss of passion and purpose in your daily work by intensifying your personal relationships. I think we talk so much about inner growth and development because we are so boxed in to petty, private concerns on our jobs.
Since this is a transcribed dialogue over several evenings Hillman and Ventura drift off often - some quotes:
Or put it another way: Growth is always loss. Anytime you’re gonna grow, you’re gonna lose something. You’re losing what you’re hanging onto to keep safe. You’re losing habits that you’re comfortable with, you’re losing familiarity. That’s a big one, when you begin to move into the unfamiliar.
[...]
Where is the life of children? In this sense the concept of the inner child represses our actual childhoods and concentrates the fear, vulnerability, failure, and grief we feel as adults into an image that we can detach from our adult life—an image easily marketable and played upon.
[...]
Another therapist has informed another friend that he’s a borderline personality, and now he’s interpreting everything through that lens and in the process forgetting, or at least discounting, what doesn’t fit. Again, the diagnoses act like computer viruses, changing and erasing memories.
Hihgly recommended if you're into sociological philosophers/cultural anthropologists like Erich Fromm or Ernest Becker.
August 30, 2024
I'm not sure you could ask for much more out of a conversation or correspondence than what you get between renowned Jungian psychoanalyst James Hillman (who has since passed away) and muckraking writer-journalist, Michael Ventura. Riveting, profound, transgressive, intense, bulldozing the status quo limitations of contemporary psychotherapy, they push out in to the limits and intersections of reality and abstraction, dismantling a lot of preconceived notions and dogmatic truths that contemporary therapy is premised upon. It gets wacky and absurd and entertains a lot of ideas that would receive resounding condemnation in therapeutic circles and the culture at large (which is actually one giant therapeutic circle).
Modern therapy, like religion according to Marx, is a numbing agent that mitigates or altogether prevents radical confrontation with political and sociocultural ills that have been inflicted upon us. It acts more than anything like a coping mechanism, whose primary goal is to remold the individual into something more compatible with the evils of the system, which inevitably renders them into dehumanized and detached sacks of carbon. Rather than addressing repression, which both men agree is the primary purpose of modern therapy, it should endeavor to unmask those deep, problematic intensities within a person and seek to make connections to the overarching systems that the individual is subjugated to in the present. The overemphasis on childhood as the origin point of "trauma" or "maladjustment" obscures the present, or at least treats the present maladjustments as symptoms of some larger and previous cause that is to be located in the past. This essentially negates the political and renders it obsolete, since politics necessitates antagonism and since antagonism within the confines of therapeutic discourse and practice is the intended target. The answer is to cultivate these instead thereby turning the therapy into a mechanism for deeper consciousness, feeling, and ultimately, political potential.
Modern therapy, like religion according to Marx, is a numbing agent that mitigates or altogether prevents radical confrontation with political and sociocultural ills that have been inflicted upon us. It acts more than anything like a coping mechanism, whose primary goal is to remold the individual into something more compatible with the evils of the system, which inevitably renders them into dehumanized and detached sacks of carbon. Rather than addressing repression, which both men agree is the primary purpose of modern therapy, it should endeavor to unmask those deep, problematic intensities within a person and seek to make connections to the overarching systems that the individual is subjugated to in the present. The overemphasis on childhood as the origin point of "trauma" or "maladjustment" obscures the present, or at least treats the present maladjustments as symptoms of some larger and previous cause that is to be located in the past. This essentially negates the political and renders it obsolete, since politics necessitates antagonism and since antagonism within the confines of therapeutic discourse and practice is the intended target. The answer is to cultivate these instead thereby turning the therapy into a mechanism for deeper consciousness, feeling, and ultimately, political potential.
March 4, 2015
My first meeting with James Hillman lasted 14 hours. At the end, totally enamored with his willingness to sit and talk with me personally for an hour--about love, I hopped up and exclaimed, "James Hillman, may I have a hug?" He replied dryly, "I don't hug."
...
A humbling experience for the novice psychotherapist and grad student, I was still recovering from this sleight and recalled, of course he doesn't hug, look at his body of work. Duh.
This is one of many of Hillman's works that I will speak to on more personal level, for I do love what Hillman espouses, however cantankerous he could be in person, and sometimes so in writing.
What I found to be of value in this book was the underlying call to action for the entire field of "therapy". Hillman's words here reminded me of the Pink Floyd anthem, "Welcome to the Machine". Now, wake up and do things on a more attuned, lucid level.
This book has overt and covert immeasurable value. Just do not expect a hug at the end.
...
A humbling experience for the novice psychotherapist and grad student, I was still recovering from this sleight and recalled, of course he doesn't hug, look at his body of work. Duh.
This is one of many of Hillman's works that I will speak to on more personal level, for I do love what Hillman espouses, however cantankerous he could be in person, and sometimes so in writing.
What I found to be of value in this book was the underlying call to action for the entire field of "therapy". Hillman's words here reminded me of the Pink Floyd anthem, "Welcome to the Machine". Now, wake up and do things on a more attuned, lucid level.
This book has overt and covert immeasurable value. Just do not expect a hug at the end.
April 15, 2016
This is a book to be read with a grain of salt (and probably a shot of tequila with lime for that matter) but it should be read. I'm sorry to have put it off so long, the title had put me off, it was dismissive sounding when really, the book is irreverent not dismissive at all. Playing with the very idea of ideas, Hillman and Ventura wander their way through a series of conversations and letters that provoke the imagination. The book made me itchy to be in my life, to stop trying to escape the trouble of it all and embrace the mess in the face of the inevitable.
May 29, 2010
This is an excellent introduction to the thought of James Hillman. The book is composed of three dialogs and one series of letters between Hillman and his friend, Michael Ventura. I won't say I agree with everything Hillman says, but his ideas are creative, sometimes shocking, and most of the time flat-out brilliant. If you're at all interested in James Hillman or Archetypal Psychology, this is a great place to start.
November 1, 2012
Great dialogue, some parts more interesting than others. Long list of ways to evaluate an idea: is it fertile, fecund? does it make you think? is it surprising, shocking? does it stop you from habits & bring a spark of reflection? is it delightful to think about? does it seem deep? important? needing to be told? does it wear out quickly? what does the idea want from you? why did it decide to light in your mind? This way of thinking about what we think gives pause.
July 5, 2015
A good read and only slightly dated for being 25 years old. I didn't really care for the exchange-style format, though that is surmountable. I value Hillman's call to turn the therapy room into a cell of the revolution, that all is not well with the world and that our "disorders" may stem not from childhood but from the very abrasive and alienating society and culture we live in. A lot of poignant ideas covering a range of topics. Worth reading.
January 2, 2009
I would also give this book 4.5 stars if I could. A funny collaborative project between a seasoned therapist and a seasoned client (not with each other, by the way), this critique challenges the field to keep growing and learning and to resist complacency and structure. They come up with some deep questions and some even deeper personal answers. Loved this one!
September 1, 2010
A good read if you like idea books that will turn some common beliefs on their heads. I don't agree with all of the content or find it useful, but it was a good read.
March 14, 2019
I really don't know what to think about this book. In a sense I was disappointed because I expected the content to be different going off the title, but then again the title isn't completely mischaracterizing of the content. I admire the approach and logic behind the book, but feel it was poorly executed in some facets. I can't say it's a great book, but for the attempt alone, I respect it. The following will be my attempt to understand this publishing in all of its chaos, discursive conversation, and Jungian theory. I'll say forthright that I'm not a fan of Jung from what I've read of his (which is very little). I'm also not familiar with Hillman so maybe there's a reason for his following. I lump a large amount of this book's content in with how I see Jung, as being so obscure that it appears (only superficially) to have depth. I assume that's the appeal to most people, I don't understand how it's so highly rated, but then again I could also be misreading that. That impression isn't any more alleviated either when at times it seems there's a competition to fit as many references, quotes, and words of foreign origin (Latin, French, and German conveniently defined for the reader) in a single paragraph just to make a point. We get it, you're well read. If that doesn't make your point come across any clearer, then it's not worth mentioning.
So the basic approach of this text is general inquiry through dialogue, much like those of Plato and Socrates. I don't think this is necessarily a bad idea when there's structure to the conversation, the interlocutors have a clear vision and stance on their topics, and there's a decent amount of revision (as I honestly assume to be in the case of Plato's writings, because that caliber of a conversation taking place spontaneously has always seemed dubious to me). Some might say this takes it out of the realm of conversation for the sake of exploring ideas, but otherwise you end up with a result such as this: an asterism of thoughts and associations that are difficult to trace to their omitted frames of reference or starting point, false analogies, and groundless postulates that come to be foundations to extrapolate from as soon as they're uttered.
I still can't judge them harshly on this note because it's a symptom of the approach. I can't imagine what my writings would look like if I loaded a fully automatic rifle with spaghetti strand theories and emptied the magazine fiercely against the wall. This is why I think the publication would have fared better if some of the intriguing ideas from that wild imagining had been gleaned, crystallized, and expounded upon. They do seem to be self-aware of this tendency in some places, specifically pages 140-146 concerning Hillman's "On Being Practical" segment. But I personally found his explanation, as to why he approaches ideas in this way, to be grating. In my attempt to convey Hillman's perspective, it seems as though he sees ideas as something to explore and toy with, without focusing so much so soon on application and rigorously trying these ideas. The latter activity he seems to leave up to others. It's apparent that Hillman is a fan of the arts in a romantic sense, often citing poetry and literature to deliver his message and focusing more on the expression of ideas than their logical consistency. But as a member of the audience, it's not interesting to me to be told that the legwork of your "empty protest" is up to me, that I need to be the one to flesh out your ideas and do something about your vague criticisms of the world.
It was endearing to see the comradery between these two individuals as they enjoyed one another's friendship and gave exchanges over a spread of topics. However, they almost have a sort of mutually negative influence on one another when it comes to the cementing of concepts. They feed off of one another and alternate in cultivating premises in a spiral of aberration and ambiguity from the topic at hand as well as the thread of logic that ties it all together. This may have been the book they wanted, and if so then kudos to them. But as a consumer, it's not interesting to go down a laundry list of "what ifs" without any compelling argument or evidence for why I should adopt or even care about these opinions.
A few basic arguments I can possibly clumsily convey from what I read is:
- "Community" is unhealthy and the cause for a lot of individual issues, seemingly absolving the individual of responsibility.
- "Puritanism" is the backdrop for the community.
- A bunch of other stuff. I don't know. Should we answer the phone because someone calls and asks us to pick up if we're there?
I respect the attempt, but have little to say about the execution or the content.
So the basic approach of this text is general inquiry through dialogue, much like those of Plato and Socrates. I don't think this is necessarily a bad idea when there's structure to the conversation, the interlocutors have a clear vision and stance on their topics, and there's a decent amount of revision (as I honestly assume to be in the case of Plato's writings, because that caliber of a conversation taking place spontaneously has always seemed dubious to me). Some might say this takes it out of the realm of conversation for the sake of exploring ideas, but otherwise you end up with a result such as this: an asterism of thoughts and associations that are difficult to trace to their omitted frames of reference or starting point, false analogies, and groundless postulates that come to be foundations to extrapolate from as soon as they're uttered.
I still can't judge them harshly on this note because it's a symptom of the approach. I can't imagine what my writings would look like if I loaded a fully automatic rifle with spaghetti strand theories and emptied the magazine fiercely against the wall. This is why I think the publication would have fared better if some of the intriguing ideas from that wild imagining had been gleaned, crystallized, and expounded upon. They do seem to be self-aware of this tendency in some places, specifically pages 140-146 concerning Hillman's "On Being Practical" segment. But I personally found his explanation, as to why he approaches ideas in this way, to be grating. In my attempt to convey Hillman's perspective, it seems as though he sees ideas as something to explore and toy with, without focusing so much so soon on application and rigorously trying these ideas. The latter activity he seems to leave up to others. It's apparent that Hillman is a fan of the arts in a romantic sense, often citing poetry and literature to deliver his message and focusing more on the expression of ideas than their logical consistency. But as a member of the audience, it's not interesting to me to be told that the legwork of your "empty protest" is up to me, that I need to be the one to flesh out your ideas and do something about your vague criticisms of the world.
It was endearing to see the comradery between these two individuals as they enjoyed one another's friendship and gave exchanges over a spread of topics. However, they almost have a sort of mutually negative influence on one another when it comes to the cementing of concepts. They feed off of one another and alternate in cultivating premises in a spiral of aberration and ambiguity from the topic at hand as well as the thread of logic that ties it all together. This may have been the book they wanted, and if so then kudos to them. But as a consumer, it's not interesting to go down a laundry list of "what ifs" without any compelling argument or evidence for why I should adopt or even care about these opinions.
A few basic arguments I can possibly clumsily convey from what I read is:
- "Community" is unhealthy and the cause for a lot of individual issues, seemingly absolving the individual of responsibility.
- "Puritanism" is the backdrop for the community.
- A bunch of other stuff. I don't know. Should we answer the phone because someone calls and asks us to pick up if we're there?
I respect the attempt, but have little to say about the execution or the content.
August 30, 2025
Therapy as forming aesthetics rather than function and/or mending pathology, to rekindle our desire of the world, letting the ecology of love take in. Cultivatig the imagination to see the illusion of imagination, if not you’ll take the map for reality.
Hillman and Ventura understand that therapy has been reduced to a corporate, consumerist, and hyper-individualist approach, reducing human life to a mere utility reserve of capital production. The therapist doesn’t concern itself with what really causes the illness (environmental conditions, spiritual lack, etc.) because therapy must be seen as “scientific” and “useful” (Hillman questions if it has ever been), and doesn’t reduce the life of the individual to its infancy making it about a safe environment for the wounded child (which I really, really like, that talk feels too disempowering, a will-o-wisp of the romantic era: our modern ascetic retreat from life) . This is all good, but the problem with this book is that although it points out clear problems with therapy (how its language is separated from the world, its corporatization, no clear social or political impact, hasn’t produced any communal sense, etc.) it doesn’t go far enough developing the ideas it throws to the reader.
For example, they speculate that each city may have a soul, and each may require a different style of therapy. If this is the case, then why cling to the idea of a true self separated from the collective? If the individual soul is a direct product of the collective soul, and therefore to see it as uniform and orderly is incorrect, then why not think of the soul as multiplicity of desires/roles/selfs?
Hillman radically rejects the idea of therapy as making the patient useful for society or “saner”, opting for an aesthetic training of the individual to see itself as part of the world and produce a communal sense that may result in solidarity and, hopefully, revolution (though Hillman doesn’t explain what he means by revolution). This is very similar to what Schiller (and Nietzsche to an extent if we throw the aristocratic nonsense) had in mind with his philosophy. The hand after all is made to grasp before it can perform; capitalism sees it the other way and that’s why everything’s fucked. It worries me they’re a bit dismissive about materialism, for a lot of mental ilness are based on material conditions (The Origins of Unhappiness: A New Understanding of Personal Distress). No matter.
I see they want to get political while also not advertise an ideology, just a therapeutic approach; but if you’re going to criticize therapy for being too corporate, safe, and puritan, you might as well be politically explicit or try to find a connection with the world beyond the psychobabble (but they can’t because Jungian psychoanalysis can’t see the world beyond the psyche. In some parts they say they want to part away from jungian analysis though, so maybe it's salvageable). What’s the alternative then? A confounding of ideas that don’t cohere very well or are not that well thought out. Don’t get me wrong, I very much like what they’re saying, and developing the ideas is not the point really but more to feel and grasp what they’re saying through the interchange of improvisation; it’s just that the lack of coherence and sociopolitical understanding bothers me a bunch. They don’t quite recognize psychotherapy is a system that reproduces power relations that are made to stabilize conditions of material conditions, psychoanalysis included. (Power, Interest and Psychology: Elements of a Social Materialist Understanding of Distress)
Later he talks about victimizing culture and how it produces a sense of solidarity out of a resentful and moralistic understanding of reality. A very much true and fair criticism (Exiting the Vampire Castle), just not well developed, feeling reductionist at the end.
All and all this is not a bad book, in truth I’m being too rough. It’s nice and entertaining in its brainstorming, funny at times and just very chill, hence it feels kind of unfair to call it out on its bull because the authors are not looking for what I’m pointing. Anyway, it’s a step in the right direction.
Hillman and Ventura understand that therapy has been reduced to a corporate, consumerist, and hyper-individualist approach, reducing human life to a mere utility reserve of capital production. The therapist doesn’t concern itself with what really causes the illness (environmental conditions, spiritual lack, etc.) because therapy must be seen as “scientific” and “useful” (Hillman questions if it has ever been), and doesn’t reduce the life of the individual to its infancy making it about a safe environment for the wounded child (which I really, really like, that talk feels too disempowering, a will-o-wisp of the romantic era: our modern ascetic retreat from life) . This is all good, but the problem with this book is that although it points out clear problems with therapy (how its language is separated from the world, its corporatization, no clear social or political impact, hasn’t produced any communal sense, etc.) it doesn’t go far enough developing the ideas it throws to the reader.
For example, they speculate that each city may have a soul, and each may require a different style of therapy. If this is the case, then why cling to the idea of a true self separated from the collective? If the individual soul is a direct product of the collective soul, and therefore to see it as uniform and orderly is incorrect, then why not think of the soul as multiplicity of desires/roles/selfs?
Hillman radically rejects the idea of therapy as making the patient useful for society or “saner”, opting for an aesthetic training of the individual to see itself as part of the world and produce a communal sense that may result in solidarity and, hopefully, revolution (though Hillman doesn’t explain what he means by revolution). This is very similar to what Schiller (and Nietzsche to an extent if we throw the aristocratic nonsense) had in mind with his philosophy. The hand after all is made to grasp before it can perform; capitalism sees it the other way and that’s why everything’s fucked. It worries me they’re a bit dismissive about materialism, for a lot of mental ilness are based on material conditions (The Origins of Unhappiness: A New Understanding of Personal Distress). No matter.
I see they want to get political while also not advertise an ideology, just a therapeutic approach; but if you’re going to criticize therapy for being too corporate, safe, and puritan, you might as well be politically explicit or try to find a connection with the world beyond the psychobabble (but they can’t because Jungian psychoanalysis can’t see the world beyond the psyche. In some parts they say they want to part away from jungian analysis though, so maybe it's salvageable). What’s the alternative then? A confounding of ideas that don’t cohere very well or are not that well thought out. Don’t get me wrong, I very much like what they’re saying, and developing the ideas is not the point really but more to feel and grasp what they’re saying through the interchange of improvisation; it’s just that the lack of coherence and sociopolitical understanding bothers me a bunch. They don’t quite recognize psychotherapy is a system that reproduces power relations that are made to stabilize conditions of material conditions, psychoanalysis included. (Power, Interest and Psychology: Elements of a Social Materialist Understanding of Distress)
Later he talks about victimizing culture and how it produces a sense of solidarity out of a resentful and moralistic understanding of reality. A very much true and fair criticism (Exiting the Vampire Castle), just not well developed, feeling reductionist at the end.
All and all this is not a bad book, in truth I’m being too rough. It’s nice and entertaining in its brainstorming, funny at times and just very chill, hence it feels kind of unfair to call it out on its bull because the authors are not looking for what I’m pointing. Anyway, it’s a step in the right direction.
October 7, 2019
This book is part interview format, part an exchange of letters, and it is very fun to read Hillman in this format. His ideas are eccentric and electric, as always, covering the topics of love/heartbreak, medicority, ideas, how to turn the therapy room into a cell of revolution, plus so much more. A few excerpts are below:
"If we begin in a poetic basis of mind, then psychologists have to be at home in the poetic, first of all, and that means not white bread. If our methods are to meet the madness in America, that eruptive violence, there must be madness in our methods. And, since our methods are our own personalities, which model the "cured psychological together okay person," then we therapists must admit the idiosyncratic craziness that is inherent to the poetic basis of mind, its fountain of strange imaginings. Our obligation to the soul calls for outrage and outrageousness, no warm support for compromising mediocrity."
***
""And when you realize that what love is all about is heartbreak, you're all right. But if you think it's about fulfillment, happiness, satisfaction, union, all of that stuff, you're in for even more heartbreak."
****
"For ideas to be therapeutic, that is beneficial to the soul and body politic, they must gather in to themselves, garnering force, building strength, like great movers of the mind's furniture, so that the space we inhabit is rearranged. Your thoughts, feelings, perceptions, memories have to move around in new ways, because the furniture has been moved. A long-lasting idea, like a good poem or a strong character in a movie or a novel, continues to affect your practical life without ever having been put there. Ideas that live, live in us and through us into the world. Viable ideas have their own innate heat, their own vitality. They are living things too. But first they have to move your furniture, else it is the same old you, with your same old habits, trying to apply a new idea in the same old way. Then, nothing happens at all except the loss of the idea as 'impractical' because of your haste to make it 'practical.'
****
"There just an immense reservoir of human decency around. It's a great power in the world, for keeping things going, in spite of all the corruption. Therefore we can't predict, we can't say the world is going to hell in a basket, it's too easy. You run the risk of being caught in an archetypal fantasy. Any one of the archetypal fantasies, whether it's 'the world is getting better" or "the world is going to hell in a basket" - these are myths that seize us and are comforting because any single one you get into is comforting."
"If we begin in a poetic basis of mind, then psychologists have to be at home in the poetic, first of all, and that means not white bread. If our methods are to meet the madness in America, that eruptive violence, there must be madness in our methods. And, since our methods are our own personalities, which model the "cured psychological together okay person," then we therapists must admit the idiosyncratic craziness that is inherent to the poetic basis of mind, its fountain of strange imaginings. Our obligation to the soul calls for outrage and outrageousness, no warm support for compromising mediocrity."
***
""And when you realize that what love is all about is heartbreak, you're all right. But if you think it's about fulfillment, happiness, satisfaction, union, all of that stuff, you're in for even more heartbreak."
****
"For ideas to be therapeutic, that is beneficial to the soul and body politic, they must gather in to themselves, garnering force, building strength, like great movers of the mind's furniture, so that the space we inhabit is rearranged. Your thoughts, feelings, perceptions, memories have to move around in new ways, because the furniture has been moved. A long-lasting idea, like a good poem or a strong character in a movie or a novel, continues to affect your practical life without ever having been put there. Ideas that live, live in us and through us into the world. Viable ideas have their own innate heat, their own vitality. They are living things too. But first they have to move your furniture, else it is the same old you, with your same old habits, trying to apply a new idea in the same old way. Then, nothing happens at all except the loss of the idea as 'impractical' because of your haste to make it 'practical.'
****
"There just an immense reservoir of human decency around. It's a great power in the world, for keeping things going, in spite of all the corruption. Therefore we can't predict, we can't say the world is going to hell in a basket, it's too easy. You run the risk of being caught in an archetypal fantasy. Any one of the archetypal fantasies, whether it's 'the world is getting better" or "the world is going to hell in a basket" - these are myths that seize us and are comforting because any single one you get into is comforting."
August 31, 2024
WIDE-RANGING VERBAL DIALOGUES AND A SERIES OF LETTERS
The Preface by coauthor Michael Ventura to this 1992 book states, "The genesis of this book ... [is] that the psychologist James Hillman's work (especially his book 'The Dream And The Underworld') influenced, instigated, and haunted my thought ... one day I was talking about Hillman to Kit Rachlis, the editor of the L.A. Weekly, and that Kit was so intrigued he suggested I do a cover-story interview with Jim; that the cover-story (which, in extended form, is now Part One of this book) was widely and strenuously discussed up and down the town; and that, on the strength of this reaction, we decided to make a book.
"We wanted an informal, wild, even funny book about therapy... we decided to stick to spoken, friendly (and hence irreverent) speech, and the conversational prose of letters. Why? Because ... psychotherapy industry wants to be addressed in a manner that accepts its basic codes of conduct, and therefore, by implication, its basic GOALS, of conduct. But if you fall for that, then instead of questioning those codes and goals, perhaps you're accepting them more than you know, reinforcing them by playing by their rules." (Pg. vii)
Hillman begins by saying, "We've had a hundred years of analysis, and people are getting more and more sensitive, and the world is getting worse and worse. Maybe it's time to look at that. We still locate the psyche inside the skin. You go INSIDE to locate the psyche, you examine YOUR feelings and YOUR dreams, they belong to you. Or it's interrelations, interpsyche, between your psyche and mine. That's been extended a little bit into family systems and office groups---but the psyche, the soul, is still only WITHIN and BETWEEN groups. We're working on our relationships constantly, and our feelings and reflections, but look what's left out of that." (Pg. 3)
The book contains two dialogues between Hillman and Ventura, with an exchange of letters in-between.
If the title suggests to you that this book will be a reasoned critique of psychotherapy from a distinguished Jungian analyst, you may (as I was) be disappointed; the dialogue and letters range all over the place---sex, God, film, relationships, victimization, therapeutic culture, etc.---and seemingly don't stay on one topic for long. At times, it's more a series of "rants" than a discursive critique of the "psychotherapy industry."
The Preface by coauthor Michael Ventura to this 1992 book states, "The genesis of this book ... [is] that the psychologist James Hillman's work (especially his book 'The Dream And The Underworld') influenced, instigated, and haunted my thought ... one day I was talking about Hillman to Kit Rachlis, the editor of the L.A. Weekly, and that Kit was so intrigued he suggested I do a cover-story interview with Jim; that the cover-story (which, in extended form, is now Part One of this book) was widely and strenuously discussed up and down the town; and that, on the strength of this reaction, we decided to make a book.
"We wanted an informal, wild, even funny book about therapy... we decided to stick to spoken, friendly (and hence irreverent) speech, and the conversational prose of letters. Why? Because ... psychotherapy industry wants to be addressed in a manner that accepts its basic codes of conduct, and therefore, by implication, its basic GOALS, of conduct. But if you fall for that, then instead of questioning those codes and goals, perhaps you're accepting them more than you know, reinforcing them by playing by their rules." (Pg. vii)
Hillman begins by saying, "We've had a hundred years of analysis, and people are getting more and more sensitive, and the world is getting worse and worse. Maybe it's time to look at that. We still locate the psyche inside the skin. You go INSIDE to locate the psyche, you examine YOUR feelings and YOUR dreams, they belong to you. Or it's interrelations, interpsyche, between your psyche and mine. That's been extended a little bit into family systems and office groups---but the psyche, the soul, is still only WITHIN and BETWEEN groups. We're working on our relationships constantly, and our feelings and reflections, but look what's left out of that." (Pg. 3)
The book contains two dialogues between Hillman and Ventura, with an exchange of letters in-between.
If the title suggests to you that this book will be a reasoned critique of psychotherapy from a distinguished Jungian analyst, you may (as I was) be disappointed; the dialogue and letters range all over the place---sex, God, film, relationships, victimization, therapeutic culture, etc.---and seemingly don't stay on one topic for long. At times, it's more a series of "rants" than a discursive critique of the "psychotherapy industry."
September 9, 2021
3.5 stars.
Many concepts from this book will stick with me for life. The idea of the acorn becoming a tree, or that our inner nature is encoded in us from birth and our childhood experiences give the inner nature opportunities to express itself instead of shaping it directly. That our family histories don’t go far enough: our ancestors are a part of our stories, too, yet there’s rarely room to discuss them in therapy. I fully endorse the argument that Western romantic relationships (and, from there, the rise of the suburb) developed as an isolation tactic to separate people from mutual aid and political communities, but that we seek out partners to live out the fall of Western civilization with in the same way that passengers hold each other as the plane’s about to crash.
Where I take issue is the black-or-white thinking present throughout. The authors assert that calling yourself a survivor of rape or incest disrespects the memories of genocide victims. Particularly strange argument when the crux of the entire last half of the book is that we live in a crumbling, deeply dysfunctional society of -isms and that just surviving is a miracle. The authors also lean into their (white, male) bias by claiming they have nothing to do with patriarchy - they have something to do with the dishes left in the sink, but they’re not responsible for the centuries of sexism that preceded them. Elsewhere in the book they’re able to process nuance, and they give credence to the idea that even though we’re not responsible for the world’s ills, we owe it to ourselves to organize our communities. Yet on the topic of patriarchy they can’t grasp that though they’re not their ancestors, they need to think outside the unwashed dishes into how the society marginalizes non-men and what role they play in that marginalization.
Overall worth a read. I feel affirmed that I’m not alone in finding very little success with traditional talk therapy over many years, but take everything with a hefty dose of salt.
Many concepts from this book will stick with me for life. The idea of the acorn becoming a tree, or that our inner nature is encoded in us from birth and our childhood experiences give the inner nature opportunities to express itself instead of shaping it directly. That our family histories don’t go far enough: our ancestors are a part of our stories, too, yet there’s rarely room to discuss them in therapy. I fully endorse the argument that Western romantic relationships (and, from there, the rise of the suburb) developed as an isolation tactic to separate people from mutual aid and political communities, but that we seek out partners to live out the fall of Western civilization with in the same way that passengers hold each other as the plane’s about to crash.
Where I take issue is the black-or-white thinking present throughout. The authors assert that calling yourself a survivor of rape or incest disrespects the memories of genocide victims. Particularly strange argument when the crux of the entire last half of the book is that we live in a crumbling, deeply dysfunctional society of -isms and that just surviving is a miracle. The authors also lean into their (white, male) bias by claiming they have nothing to do with patriarchy - they have something to do with the dishes left in the sink, but they’re not responsible for the centuries of sexism that preceded them. Elsewhere in the book they’re able to process nuance, and they give credence to the idea that even though we’re not responsible for the world’s ills, we owe it to ourselves to organize our communities. Yet on the topic of patriarchy they can’t grasp that though they’re not their ancestors, they need to think outside the unwashed dishes into how the society marginalizes non-men and what role they play in that marginalization.
Overall worth a read. I feel affirmed that I’m not alone in finding very little success with traditional talk therapy over many years, but take everything with a hefty dose of salt.
December 23, 2025
3.5/5
I never really write reviews but for whatever reason feel compelled to do so by this book. Throughout my read I often felt engaged and stimulated-- highlighter at the ready to mark a plethora of notable quotes-- and then just a page flip later would be thrown for a loop and even disgusted by the topic and nature into which the conversation flowed. Both compelled and repulsed was my experience of this text, which seems fitting for such an honest, stream of consciousness, and no limits dialogue between two close and obviously intelligent minds. I was often taken aback by how prescient aspects of their discussion were, predicting the modern state of therapy, politics, and Western culture as a whole. These were certainly highlights for me, however, they were sometimes derailed by baseless and strange claims that seemed to be dwelled on for longer than necessary. Unfortunately, it seems that much of the author's hopes for the future have not been realized as of 2025, and the world does seem to be "getting worse" across the board. Regardless, the honesty and care from the authors shines through and has meaningfully contributed to my view of psychotherapy as someone entering the profession.
I never really write reviews but for whatever reason feel compelled to do so by this book. Throughout my read I often felt engaged and stimulated-- highlighter at the ready to mark a plethora of notable quotes-- and then just a page flip later would be thrown for a loop and even disgusted by the topic and nature into which the conversation flowed. Both compelled and repulsed was my experience of this text, which seems fitting for such an honest, stream of consciousness, and no limits dialogue between two close and obviously intelligent minds. I was often taken aback by how prescient aspects of their discussion were, predicting the modern state of therapy, politics, and Western culture as a whole. These were certainly highlights for me, however, they were sometimes derailed by baseless and strange claims that seemed to be dwelled on for longer than necessary. Unfortunately, it seems that much of the author's hopes for the future have not been realized as of 2025, and the world does seem to be "getting worse" across the board. Regardless, the honesty and care from the authors shines through and has meaningfully contributed to my view of psychotherapy as someone entering the profession.
January 11, 2020
Knížka plyne v dynamickém rozhovoru psychoterapeuta a spisovatele s letiou zkušeností s pychoterapií. Zamýšlí se nad otázkou, zda v dnešní době nefunguje psychoterapie spíše jako prostředek na odvádění pozornosti lidí od vnějšího světa, politky atd. jen k sobě, do sebe, do svého dětství, ke svému vnitřnímu dítěti. Vysvětlovalo by to částečně, proč je na tom svět špatně. Navrhují, jak by se psychoterapie mohla radikálně proměnit, jak by naopak mohla sloužit k tomu, aby lidi zaměřili svou pozornost ven a hlavně do přítomnosti, ve které se vlastně všechny ty jejich trable dějí. Autoři navrhují, aby se terapeutická místnost stala revoluční buňkou. Aby terapeut pomáhal hledat odvahu bojovat s věcmi, na které si myslíme, že ani nemáme vliv a naučili jsme se je jen rezignovaně přijímat.
Některá témata silně kontroverzní a je třeba brát v potaz, že jde o pohled na psychoterapii v Americe.
Nutí k zamyšlení nad velkou spoustou věcí, doporučuji přečíst každému, kdo rád takovou věc jako je přemýšlení dělá ...
Některá témata silně kontroverzní a je třeba brát v potaz, že jde o pohled na psychoterapii v Americe.
Nutí k zamyšlení nad velkou spoustou věcí, doporučuji přečíst každému, kdo rád takovou věc jako je přemýšlení dělá ...
November 1, 2021
It's so White-men bourgeois, it's maddening. But it's more than a little bit enlightening as well. I was going to say it's dated, but it really isn't. I really connected with the time period because I remember 1991 very well, but I was a different political--I should really say apolitical--animal then, so it's really neat to see that people were talking in 1991 the way I would be talking in 1998 without even knowing all this stuff was going on way back when I was a freshman in high school and was still deathly afraid of girls.
They get an awful lot right, despite their glaring blind spots. If you pointed them out, they would gladly own up to those blind spots, too, especially Hillman, except he's dead now. Ventura would, eventually, but he'd make a big fuss about it, because he's a big baby at heart, and he definitely knows it.
Every therapist should read this book. Every medium- or long-term therapee knows this book, even if they haven't read it yet. It's more important that the people getting paid read it than the people paying and/or getting wrec--I mean helped.
They get an awful lot right, despite their glaring blind spots. If you pointed them out, they would gladly own up to those blind spots, too, especially Hillman, except he's dead now. Ventura would, eventually, but he'd make a big fuss about it, because he's a big baby at heart, and he definitely knows it.
Every therapist should read this book. Every medium- or long-term therapee knows this book, even if they haven't read it yet. It's more important that the people getting paid read it than the people paying and/or getting wrec--I mean helped.
February 10, 2024
I went in reading this book not really sure what to expect. Is this book about therapy? Yes and no. I felt the lenses that the authors used to examine the current state of therapy today are so wide and worldly that you don’t necessarily have to have experience with therapy to get the points they make about our culture, societies, and communities that we live and operate in.
I found it also interesting that the book was written 30+ years ago and many of the sentiments they share in the book about topics like technology, individualism, politics, etc. are now more relevant/heightened.
The book broke through and questioned many of the constraints of “the system” in an extremely beautiful way. I loved that the format of the book was mainly back and forth dialogue (long and short form), making their takes even more raw and compelling. It also helped soften some of the hot takes because it’s really just 2 intellects shooting the shit. I would recommend to anyone who’s interested in ruminating on what we *actually* are doing with the time we have on this planet.
I found it also interesting that the book was written 30+ years ago and many of the sentiments they share in the book about topics like technology, individualism, politics, etc. are now more relevant/heightened.
The book broke through and questioned many of the constraints of “the system” in an extremely beautiful way. I loved that the format of the book was mainly back and forth dialogue (long and short form), making their takes even more raw and compelling. It also helped soften some of the hot takes because it’s really just 2 intellects shooting the shit. I would recommend to anyone who’s interested in ruminating on what we *actually* are doing with the time we have on this planet.
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