JAMES HILLMAN & ARCHETYPAL PSYCHOLOGY—THE RETURN OF THE GODS
DR. GLEN SLATER
Winter 2025
James Hillman was a prominent post-Jungian thinker and writer who founded the depth psychological approach known as Archetypal Psychology. He built on Jung’s understanding of the archetypal background of the psyche and took the mythic imagination to be the primary means by which we may access this background. This made him, in many respects, the world’s most mythological psychologist.
This course is an introduction to Hillman’s work. It begins by examining the roots of his approach and engaging critical distinctions he makes between different styles of knowing that play a dominant role in psychology—old and new, spiritual and soulful, and monotheistic and polytheistic. We will then move to focus on the process he calls “soul-making,” which he understands to be the opus of psychological life. Hillman argues we make soul by cultivating images, which brings depth, eros, and divine play to the events and circumstances of life. He sets out these notions and other essential elements of his approach in his pivotal book, Re-Visioning Psychology, which will anchor the course. In the final weeks we will apply his perspective to two pressing concerns of our day: our immersion in digital technology and our capitulation to large, abstract systems.
In this course you will not only develop a familiarity with the basic ideas of archetypal psychology and form a deeper understanding of the confluence of psychology and mythology, you will explore the significance of this approach in relation to a range of socio-cultural challenges, including the search for a new cosmology.
Nine Saturdays Live on Zoom
12 PM — 1:30 PM PST *Recordings will be made available
January 4 — March 1, 2025
$333
Enrollment Opens September 21
Glen Slater, Ph.D. has been a long-time core faculty member at Pacifica Graduate Institute, most recently chairing the Jungian and Archetypal Psychology Program. He is the author of Jung vs Borg: Finding the Deeply Human in a Posthuman Age (2024), editor of the third volume of James Hillman’s Uniform Edition, Senex and Puer, co-editor of the essay collection, Varieties of Mythic Experience, and has written a number of articles and book chapters for Jungian publications. His research and writing interests concern Jung and film, the psychology of religion, and depth psychology and technology.
