The Archetypal Psychology of James Hillman and the Integral Psychology of C. G. Jung: Comparisons and Contrasts
The task I set before myself in this essay is to differentiate the archetypal psychology of James Hillman from the Integral psychology of C. G. Jung. A key difference lies in the phenomenon of the Self in Jung’s psychology, which he sees as the integrating centre of personality. There is no centre of personality as such in Hillman’s scheme, although he exhorts his audience to deepen its relationship with the archetypal image in search of a “theos” inherent in each event. Jung essentially posits an ego-Self axis, where the individuation process leads to increasing sacrifice of the ego to the Self. Hillman is interested in the polytheistic psyche and a repressive ego that needs to gets out of the way to allow its fuller expression. Jung also encourages a polytheistic psyche but, in addition, a transformation of personality that goes beyond the exercise of the ego getting out of the way and loosening attachments. Hillman’s psychology can be characterized as an aesthetic psychology, whereas Jung puts more weight on the ethical nature and conflicts of duty, which are resolved by what he calls the transcendent function. Another way of putting it is Hillman has a process-oriented psychology of the three, and Jung’s psychology is a psychology of the three and four, which means both process and the incarnation of the Self in life. The way Jung sees dreams and the way Hillman sees them are different due to their different assumptions on the nature of the psyche. For Hillman there is no hierarchy in the psyche including in dreams, whereas for Jung there is, along with the suggestion that the hierarchy mounts in a spiritualization process of transformation of all aspects of nature. With his aesthetic psychology, Hillman, in contrast, is seeking detachment from the world with a kind of American Zen. On the same lines, with regard to the inferior order of the psyche, Hillman calls on the need for a deepening process he calls pathologizng, whereas Jung refers to the shadow and the inferior function, calling for their transformation, eventually for the sake of incarnating the Self.
