In his powerful bestseller The Soul's Code, James Hillman brilliantly illuminated the central importance of character to our spiritual and emotional lives. Now, in this magnificent new book, Hillman completes his exploration of character with a profound and revolutionary reflection on life's second half. "Character requires the additional years," declares Hillman. "The last years confirm and fulfill character." Far from blunting or dulling the self, the accumulation of experience concentrates the essence of our being, heightening our individual mystery and unique awareness of life. Drawing on his grounding in Jungian psychology, Hillman explains here the archetypes and myths that govern the self's realignment in our final years. The Force of Character follows an enriching journey through the three stages of aging--lasting, the deepening that comes with longevity; leaving, the preparation for departure; and left, the special legacy we each bestow on our survivors. Along the way the book explores the meanings and often hidden virtues of characteristic physical and emotional changes, such as loss of memory, alterations in sleep patterns, and the mysterious upsurge in erotic imagination. Steeped in the wisdom of a lifetime, radiant with Hillman's reading in philosophy, poetry, and sacred texts, charged with a piercing clarity, The Force of Character is a book that will change--and affirm--the lives of all who read it.

This groundbreaking classic explores the necessity of connections between our life and soul and developing the main lines of the soul-making process.

This groundbreaking classic explores the necessity of connections between our life and soul and developing the main lines of the soul-making process.

In a deepening of the thinking begun in The Myth of Analysis and Re-Visioning Psychology , James Hillman develops the first new view of dreams since Freud and Jung.

From world-renowned psychologist and bestselling author of The Soul's Code , a profound examination of the roots of man's primal love/hate relationship with war. War is a timeless force in the human imagination-and, indeed, in daily life. If recent events have taught us anything, it is that peacetime is not nearly so constant and attainable as wartime. During the 5,600 years of recorded history, 14,600 wars have been fought-2 to 3 for every year of human history. War is a constant thing. And yet no one really understands why that is. In A Terrible Love of War , James Hillman, one of the central figures in psychology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, fills this great void and undertakes a groundbreaking examination of the origins, needs, and rewards of war. Moreover, in this brilliant inquiry, Hillman explores many other essential questions, such as: € Is war a necessary part of our human soul and, therefore, a necessary part of our lives? € Why do we need enemies? € What scars does warfare carve on the psyche of its soldiers? And why does it have such a permanent effect? € If war is such a "normal" part of our existence, why do we fear it so much? And alternately, how could we ever embrace a force so destructive, so wanton, and so inhuman? € Can the impulse to engage in war be tamed? Hillman asserts that "if we want war's horror to be abated so that life may go on, it is necessary to understand and imagine." A Terrible Love of War is a crucial tool to understanding war-a crucial book for us all.

"Blending case histories with myth, clinical fact with imaginative meaning, this book, with its profound appreciation of history and biography, of the arts, ideas, and culture, trains the senses to perceive the face of the soul. In papers on abandonment, nostalgia, betrayal, schism, failure, and masturbation, Hillman shows that pathology belongs intrinsically to the psyche and that it reveals the unchanging, necessary, fecund depths of human nature. A brief note on story pleads for a "story sense," a deeply therapeutic awareness of how mythic persons and archetypal events influence the psyche by conditioning perceptions, generating meanings, and shaping our lives, while another essay associates archetypal psychology with neoplatonism, the elegant, cultured, psychological vision of Plotinus, Ficino, and Vico. Together, these twelve essays and talks affirm the polyvalent, shadowed reality of the psyche and afford an example of subtle, nuanced psychological thought. For psychotherapists, analysts, counselors, and the general reader"--

This is Volume XIV of thirty-eight in a series on the General Psychology. Originally published in 1960, this study offers A Comprehensive Phenomenology of Theories and their Meanings for Therapy.