In this work, acclaimed Jungian James Hillman examines the concepts of myth, insight, eros, body, and the mytheme of female inferiority, as well as the need for the freedom to imagine and to feel psychic reality. By examining these ideas, and the role they have played both in and outside of the therapeutic setting, Hillman mounts a compelling argument that, rather than locking them away in some inner asylum or subjecting them to daily self-treatment, man's "peculiarities" can become an integral part of a rich and fulfilling daily life.

Two groundbreaking essays, "The Thought of the Heart" and "Anima Mundi: The Return of the Soul to the World", by James Hillman that launched Archetypal Psychology and began the renaissance of a psychology that returns psychic reality to the world. Following Marsilio Ficino who was the first to place the soul in the center of his vision, Hillman argues for a psychology that reflects the world it works in.

This book is James Hillman's main analysis of analysis. He asks he basic question," What does the soul want?" With insight and humor he answers: "It wants fiction to heal."

Nine essays elaborating the puer figure - the spirit of youth and the youth of spirit - through explorations in myth, literature, pathology, and archetypal psychology: Senex and Puer by James Hillman; Peaks and Valleys by James Hillman; American Learns by Henry A. Murray; Puer Wounds and Ulysses' Scar by James Hillman; Puer's Wounded Wing: Reflections on the Psychology of Skin Disease by Randolph Severson; Notes on Opportunism by James Hillman; Artemis and the Puer by Tom Moore; Puer Aeternus: The Figure of Innocence in Melville by James Baird; On Finnegans Wake by Thomas Cowan.