The Archetypal School

The third of the three post-Jungian schools as named by Samuels in Jung and the Post-Jungians (1985). The Archetypal School weights theoretical priorities in the order archetype, self, development, and clinical priorities with highly differentiated imagery first (Samuels 1985, pp. 12–13). It corresponds to what Goldenberg called the “third generation” of post-Jungians — “the first generation of people who do not feel any responsibility to Jung personally although they recognise his influence” (Samuels 1985, pp. 11–12).

Its representative figures — James Hillman, Patricia Berry, Rafael Lopez-Pedraza, Wolfgang Giegerich, David Miller, Edward Casey — take “the primacy of images” (Hillman 1975a, quoted in Samuels 1985, p. 13) as the starting point of analysis. Hillman’s signature claim — “at the most basic level of psychic reality are fantasy images. These images are the primary activity of consciousness” (Hillman 1975a, quoted in Samuels 1985, p. 13) — reverses the Classical School’s ordering: imagery is not read for what it says about the self, but the self is read as one image among many.

The school’s controversial move is the critique of the self as integrating centre. Hillman argues that “Jung’s preference for the self unduly narrows a psychology that in every other respect stresses the plurality and multiplicity of the psyche” (Samuels 1985, p. 85). The school is polytheistic where the Classical School is monotheistic, pluralistic where the Developmental School is relational, and imaginal where both others are clinical. See archetypal-psychology-charter for the school’s elaborated theoretical program.

Relationships

• classical-school
• developmental-school
• plural-psyche
• archetypal-image

Primary sources

• samuels-jung-postjungians (Samuels 1985)