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The Life and Ideas of James Hillman: Volume I: The Making of a Psychologist
Considered to be the world’s foremost post-Jungian thinker, James Hillman is known as the founder of archetypal psychology and the author of more than twenty books, including the bestselling title The Soul’s Code. In The Making of a Psychologist, we follow Hillman from his youth in the heyday of Atlantic City, through post-war Paris and Dublin, travels in Africa and Kashmir, and onward to Zurich and the Jung Institute, which appointed him its first director of studies in 1960. This first of a two-volume authorized biography is the result of hundreds of hours of interviews with Hillman and others over a seven-year period. Discover how Hillman’s unique psychology was forged through his life experiences and found its basis in the imagination, aesthetics, a return to the Greek pantheon, and the importance of “soul-making,” and gain a better understanding of the mind of one of the most brilliant psychologists of the twentieth century.
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First published July 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 22, 2013
I am deeply grateful to Dick Russell for such an enlightening and gripping biography of one of my heroes in psychology, Dr. James Hillman. As a clinical psychologist in private practice, Dr. Hillman's work has exerted a deep influence on my thinking and practice over the years. Dick Russell has done an outstanding job in presenting this complex man and his work in a format that is engaging, stimulating deep thought, and conveying the essential ideas of archetypal psychology in a clear light from within the historical landscape in which they emerged. I understand Hillman's work at a much deeper level than would otherwise be possible without knowing the biographical details that shaped his thinking and insights. I highly recommend this wonderful work to anyone with an interest in James Hillman, depth psychology, and the future of psychology. This is one of those rare books that lead me to reread it for the nuggets of insight that emerge from contemplation of the details of the story. On the third time through, it is every bit as engaging as the initial reading. This first volume leaves the reader eagerly awaiting the debut of the next!
April 20, 2014
Insightful. So much I didn't know about James Hillman's background. Well, I do now! The breadth of the topic here -- not just Hillman's biographical wheres and whens, but his ideas, their genesis and their evolutions -- is staggering. A very well-reported and synthesized book. It actually can serve as a good introduction to Hillman's work, for those who find Hillman's writing style daunting. I very much look forward to the next volume.
March 19, 2018
James Hillman’s invention of “archetypal psychology” has had as much effect on my imagination of mythology, psychology, religion, art and my own private experience as anything I’ve ever read. I first read Re-Visioning Psychology in 1977, then his classics The Myth of Analysis: Three Essays in Archetypal Psychology; The Dream and the Underworld; Healing Fiction; Inter Views; and The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the World in the early 80s. Back then the only people I knew who’d read his work were a few Jungians and a few liberal Christians.
Suddenly he was celebrated, indirectly, following the lucrative popularization of his work in Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul and Robert Bly’s emphatically earnest Iron John. Hillman published his own popularization, The Soul’s Code in the 90s - and my interest sharply declined (although I do treasure Dream Animals, a book he wrote to accompany the drawings of Margot McLean). I hope Dick Russell continues his biography to cover those years. I am curious to learn what Hillman made of the huge success other writers had with his own ideas.
Russell’s first volume fills in the background of Hillman’s early years. It is rich with incident, perhaps the most surprising (to me) being the long account of “betrayal” – the affair his analyst had with his wife, then the affair Hillman had with another man’s wife, an incident that exploded into scandal among Jungians in Europe and the United States. The way Hillman dealt with the tsunami of vituperative criticism* was a test of character, and the crucible of insight that blossomed in the books I listed above. I found this emphasis both illuminating and disturbing.
Russell is a diligent biographer. I suspect this volume will only interest readers already familiar with Hillman’s work. As I am one of them, I am grateful – although I was put off by occasional incursions of astrological minutiae, presented as if they were anything but imaginary. For example:
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* Much of which was hypocritical and self-serving: some of the analysts who attacked him had themselves been sexually involved with their patients, a psychoanalytic infraction that goes back to Freud and Jung.
Suddenly he was celebrated, indirectly, following the lucrative popularization of his work in Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul and Robert Bly’s emphatically earnest Iron John. Hillman published his own popularization, The Soul’s Code in the 90s - and my interest sharply declined (although I do treasure Dream Animals, a book he wrote to accompany the drawings of Margot McLean). I hope Dick Russell continues his biography to cover those years. I am curious to learn what Hillman made of the huge success other writers had with his own ideas.
Russell’s first volume fills in the background of Hillman’s early years. It is rich with incident, perhaps the most surprising (to me) being the long account of “betrayal” – the affair his analyst had with his wife, then the affair Hillman had with another man’s wife, an incident that exploded into scandal among Jungians in Europe and the United States. The way Hillman dealt with the tsunami of vituperative criticism* was a test of character, and the crucible of insight that blossomed in the books I listed above. I found this emphasis both illuminating and disturbing.
Russell is a diligent biographer. I suspect this volume will only interest readers already familiar with Hillman’s work. As I am one of them, I am grateful – although I was put off by occasional incursions of astrological minutiae, presented as if they were anything but imaginary. For example:
Between 1965 and 1967, a rare alignment of Pluto and Uranus took place. The energies of these two planets were in what astrologers call a conjunction: Uranus, the planet of invention, lightning-like inspiration, the Universal Mind; and Pluto, the planet of transformation, death and rebirth. Together they bring profound changes…This isn’t re-visioning; it’s ridiculous.
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* Much of which was hypocritical and self-serving: some of the analysts who attacked him had themselves been sexually involved with their patients, a psychoanalytic infraction that goes back to Freud and Jung.
March 5, 2024
Listening to this biography of the archetypal psychologist James Hillman as an audiobook felt like an epic undertaking – and the sense of achievement on completing it was vitiated by there realisation that it had taken me only to the mid-point in a full life and there are two more weighty volumes to go. The book is well written and in fact moves along briskly, ably combining narrative with ideas and analysis, but whether it and its successors are worth the investment really depends on your estimation of Hillman himself.
He intrigues me for a number of reasons. He is a link between the high seriousness of German psychoanalysis and its more free-form American successors. The dominant influence, certainly in this volume, is Carl Jung himself, who Hillman came to know in his latter years when he studied at the Jung Institute in Zurich, and Jung’s trust in the precocious American was shown when Hillman became Director of the Jung Institute. He shared Jung’s immersion in classical myth and ancient traditions, but the biography shows that Hillman thought of himself as writer first, who had been part of a literary set as a student in Dublin after the War, who found is vocation in writing psychology, rather than novels or poems.
Russell traces Hillman’s profile as a writer whose subject was psychology, rather than a psychologist who wrote, right back to his Atlantic City childhood, where archetypes were visible in the extravagant vulgarity visible on every street. His Jewish heritage is part of the story, and perhaps qualified his sense of being American to the extent that he felt more at home in Europe, which was his home for many years.
Many threads lead to Hillman’s sense of the archetypal or mythic forces at work in his own life, the lives of the people around him and the wider culture. This led him to Jung but eventually divided him from the older generation of Jungians who had grown deeply conservative. The overt reason for his departure from the Jung Institute was a scandal involving an affair with a married patient and the campaign against him of her aggrieved husband. Beneath that Russell traces going intellectual – or perhaps archetypal – differences with the Jungians and Hillman’s sense that they had missed the tensions inherent in the relation with a male father figure, in this case Jung himself.
The reason I intend to keep reading Hillman, including the next two volumes of this massive biography, is that he seems uniquely capable of articulating archetypal meanings in a modern idiom. I don’t really know what I think of his message in detail: for that I will have tread the second volume.
He intrigues me for a number of reasons. He is a link between the high seriousness of German psychoanalysis and its more free-form American successors. The dominant influence, certainly in this volume, is Carl Jung himself, who Hillman came to know in his latter years when he studied at the Jung Institute in Zurich, and Jung’s trust in the precocious American was shown when Hillman became Director of the Jung Institute. He shared Jung’s immersion in classical myth and ancient traditions, but the biography shows that Hillman thought of himself as writer first, who had been part of a literary set as a student in Dublin after the War, who found is vocation in writing psychology, rather than novels or poems.
Russell traces Hillman’s profile as a writer whose subject was psychology, rather than a psychologist who wrote, right back to his Atlantic City childhood, where archetypes were visible in the extravagant vulgarity visible on every street. His Jewish heritage is part of the story, and perhaps qualified his sense of being American to the extent that he felt more at home in Europe, which was his home for many years.
Many threads lead to Hillman’s sense of the archetypal or mythic forces at work in his own life, the lives of the people around him and the wider culture. This led him to Jung but eventually divided him from the older generation of Jungians who had grown deeply conservative. The overt reason for his departure from the Jung Institute was a scandal involving an affair with a married patient and the campaign against him of her aggrieved husband. Beneath that Russell traces going intellectual – or perhaps archetypal – differences with the Jungians and Hillman’s sense that they had missed the tensions inherent in the relation with a male father figure, in this case Jung himself.
The reason I intend to keep reading Hillman, including the next two volumes of this massive biography, is that he seems uniquely capable of articulating archetypal meanings in a modern idiom. I don’t really know what I think of his message in detail: for that I will have tread the second volume.
November 25, 2021
There are certain moments in Hillman's life, as described in this book, that I find immensely encouraging. I've read the book three times now, almost accidentally. I'll pick it up with the intention of reading a single passage, such as his struggles with writing and the desire to 'win through in logos', and I'll end up reading the whole thing. Brilliantly written. I am eagerly awaiting the second volume. Thank you Dick Russell, and thank you James.
February 6, 2020
Superb :)
Must read for all interested in J.H. work!
Must read for all interested in J.H. work!
September 18, 2023
Interview with the Author: https://youtu.be/NPfOyX_JZUo?si=GaaR2...
July 2, 2013
For anyone already a fan of Hillman, this is a must read. Book One of of two-part series written by Dick Russell takes us through Hillman's childhood years in Atlantic City, NJ, where his father owned and managed a resort hotel, through his mid-life move back to the States after spending the college years at Trinity, taking writing courses in France, marrying his first wife, starting a family, traveling to Africa, living for awhile in India among many other adventures.
After many adventurous travels Hillman is led to Zurich in the latter days of the life of psychologist C.G. Jung, where he joins the fold, and then studies to become an analyst.
Very well written, not just a biographical account, but also a background to Hillman's thinking with a lot of time spent on the development of his distinctive insights that he later referred to as Archetypal Psychology.
Part one of the story of one of our greatest modern thinkers and historian of western ideas and modes of thinking, always reminding us to turn back to the richness of the Greeks and their mythology, with their with polytheistic way of understanding of the human condition.
After many adventurous travels Hillman is led to Zurich in the latter days of the life of psychologist C.G. Jung, where he joins the fold, and then studies to become an analyst.
Very well written, not just a biographical account, but also a background to Hillman's thinking with a lot of time spent on the development of his distinctive insights that he later referred to as Archetypal Psychology.
Part one of the story of one of our greatest modern thinkers and historian of western ideas and modes of thinking, always reminding us to turn back to the richness of the Greeks and their mythology, with their with polytheistic way of understanding of the human condition.
July 16, 2014
I read this book for research, and because I was among the outer circle of James Hillman's friends and colleagues, as a fellow publisher (my former publishing company used to distribute Spring Publications). Hillman was puckish, ornery, brilliant, and never anything but interesting, and I found this volume to be a revelation. Russell has done a phenomenal job of corralling Hillman's life from a welter of letters, interviews, and journals and he is excellent at distilling some of Hillman's ideas as they formulated themselves in the 1950s and 1960s (this volume goes up to the very early 1970s). The book is long, but it rarely flags, and Russell is not afraid to depict Hillman in all his complexity. After reading this book, I feel privileged to have known the man at all, and I would recommend it as a work for anyone interested in Jungian or archetypal psychology.
November 4, 2013
Thoroughly enjoyable, deeply engaging biography (part one) of the unique and unstoppable James Hillman. His dynamic personality and vital ideas are conjured with great skill out of what seems to be a tremendous amount of material - letters, documents, interviews and remembrances by the man himself. Highly recommended.
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August 13, 2014Excellent bio of one of the most original thinkers of this century
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews