EJL 2026 - Psychic Life in the Age of Evanescence: Hillman Today
Lecturer: Paulo Barone (Italian Association of Analytical Psychology, Milano)
The idea of a psychic life capable of overcoming its divisions and reuniting itself through its vicissitudes and sufferings owes much to the thinking of James Hillman. Starting with the introduction of the notion of the unconscious by Freud and Jung, who relativized the then-dominant view centered on ego consciousness, it was Hillman in particular who showed how this work of relativization was only just beginning, given that the predominance of ego consciousness subtly persisted in the very method of psychoanalysis that was supposed to combat it. For Hillman, it was therefore a question of completing the process of de-literalization that began with the introduction of the unconscious, transforming every literal dualism in which the mind is stuck in fear into a metaphorical bridge to be crossed freely. Transform your literal storehouse into images: this is Hillman's rule, almost a replica of the traditional recommendation to live life to the fullest, realizing all the possibilities available to you. But under what conditions does such an opportunity arise when the time in which we live culminates in the evanescence of all its forms and figures? Is there a foundation, an image, in the evanescence that characterizes our time?The idea of a psychic life capable of overcoming its divisions and reuniting itself through its vicissitudes and sufferings owes much to the thinking of James Hillman. Starting with the introduction of the notion of the unconscious by Freud and Jung, who relativized the then-dominant view centered on ego consciousness, it was Hillman in particular who showed how this work of relativization was only just beginning, given that the predominance of ego consciousness subtly persisted in the very method of psychoanalysis that was supposed to combat it. For Hillman, it was therefore a question of completing the process of de-literalization that began with the introduction of the unconscious, transforming every literal dualism in which the mind is stuck in fear into a metaphorical bridge to be crossed freely. Transform your literal storehouse into images: this is Hillman's rule, almost a replica of the traditional recommendation to live life to the fullest, realizing all the possibilities available to you. But under what conditions does such an opportunity arise when the time in which we live culminates in the evanescence of all its forms and figures? Is there a foundation, an image, in the evanescence that characterizes our time?
Lecturer: Paulo Barone (Italian Association of Analytical Psychology, Milano)
The idea of a psychic life capable of overcoming its divisions and reuniting itself through its vicissitudes and sufferings owes much to the thinking of James Hillman. Starting with the introduction of the notion of the unconscious by Freud and Jung, who relativized the then-dominant view centered on ego consciousness, it was Hillman in particular who showed how this work of relativization was only just beginning, given that the predominance of ego consciousness subtly persisted in the very method of psychoanalysis that was supposed to combat it. For Hillman, it was therefore a question of completing the process of de-literalization that began with the introduction of the unconscious, transforming every literal dualism in which the mind is stuck in fear into a metaphorical bridge to be crossed freely. Transform your literal storehouse into images: this is Hillman's rule, almost a replica of the traditional recommendation to live life to the fullest, realizing all the possibilities available to you. But under what conditions does such an opportunity arise when the time in which we live culminates in the evanescence of all its forms and figures? Is there a foundation, an image, in the evanescence that characterizes our time?The idea of a psychic life capable of overcoming its divisions and reuniting itself through its vicissitudes and sufferings owes much to the thinking of James Hillman. Starting with the introduction of the notion of the unconscious by Freud and Jung, who relativized the then-dominant view centered on ego consciousness, it was Hillman in particular who showed how this work of relativization was only just beginning, given that the predominance of ego consciousness subtly persisted in the very method of psychoanalysis that was supposed to combat it. For Hillman, it was therefore a question of completing the process of de-literalization that began with the introduction of the unconscious, transforming every literal dualism in which the mind is stuck in fear into a metaphorical bridge to be crossed freely. Transform your literal storehouse into images: this is Hillman's rule, almost a replica of the traditional recommendation to live life to the fullest, realizing all the possibilities available to you. But under what conditions does such an opportunity arise when the time in which we live culminates in the evanescence of all its forms and figures? Is there a foundation, an image, in the evanescence that characterizes our time?