When Carl Jung wrote Symbols of Transformation1 in 1912 it not only signaled his split from Sigmund Freud. It also equated to the beginning of what is now nearly 100 years of Jungian Analytical Psychology. Sixty three years later, in 1975, James Hillman wrote Re-visioning Psychology.2 Whilst crediting Jung as the main precursor to his ideas, Hillman nevertheless had in writing this book, established a new school of Jungian psychology… Archetypal Psychology. In her review of Re-visioning Psychology Marianne Jacoby says that Hillmans objective was to establish a "language that is not soul-killing"3. Then in 2004 came Wolfgang Giegerich's The End of Meaning and the Birth of Man (which has the long subtitle: An Essay about the stage reached in the history of consciousness and an analysis of C. G. Jung's Psychological Project).
[...] And this is why I agree with the evolution from Jung to Hillman to Giegerich. The key is non-attachment to phenomena. This doesn't result in meaninglessness so long as the person properly understands what is meant by a non-literal approach. (or by negation). For example with Hillman he says not to feel neurotic over the surface phenomena but to see through it as just human feeling-tone, an image that belongs to all humans. Get rid of the surface literalism. It is worth reminding ourselves that too close an attachment to anything puts one at severe risk of neurosis. [...]
[...] Y & Dawson, T p17 22: Storr, in Bishop, P px1 23: ibid 24: In their own words, and within the context on focusing on their differences from each other, Hillman and Giegerich both wrote letters for public consumption, prior to the Brazilian conference. Hillman wrote that work stands for and is impassioned by anima, much as Wolfgang's deliberately, brilliantly, ruthlessly, and exhaustively proceeds from and with animus.” (Hillman, in Quintaes, November 19th 2008). Giegerich believes more in the linear development of time, history and if we argue more than in other epochs then that's because the psyche has developed in this manner. [...]
[...] Giegerich says of Hillman's Archetypal Psychology “Rather than deserting [Jung's] standpoint in favor of a personalistic developmental, clinical orientation, but also rather than being faithful to the letter of Jungian doctrine, like orthodox Jungianism, archetypal psychology was faithful to the dynamic and telos of the movement performed by Jung: it radicalized Jung's move to a situation in which the past (mythic meaning) becomes true once more, figuratively speaking: the move to “Bollingen”; this move now becomes a one-way journey. Jung's psychology had [ ] two focal points, “Bollingen” and “Kusnacht.” Hillman abolished, as it were, the “Kusnacht” position altogether.”10 With that abolition went Jungian interpretation such as compensation, the interpretation of images as symbolic, and “archetypes in themselves.”11 “Bollingen” has no counterpart.”12 So now all that is left is the feeling-tone of the images that is not scrutinized. [...]
[...] Jung thought that these voices were split off personalities, dissociated parts from her ego consciousness.23 Hillman and Giegerich, in their own ways, are trying to prevent dissociation Hillman by liking the imagination and its fictions. Who can be neurotic if you see through the neurosis? And Giegerich prevents dissociation by logic. He finds what's missing. Moreover Hillman is focusing on the irrational side of Jung, Giegerich on the rational. Jung focused on both. Hillman and Giegerich together demonstrate how to do this in a modern context. [...]
[...] “Maybe it is the success of our perspective that now confronts us with the danger to get stuck in the positivity of the image.”17 So we can say that the psyche moves from image to logic to image to logic and so on. Hence it is argued here that both Hillman and Giegerich are of immense value. They may argue with one another. Indeed there was a recent conference in Brazil concerning the ideas of these two thinkers. However not everyone splits imagination and logic. [...]
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