post jungian thought · classical jungian
The Archetypal School constitutes one of three principal currents within post-Jungian analytical psychology — the others being the Classical and Developmental Schools — and is distinguished above all by the primacy it accords to archetypal image over developmental sequence, ego strengthening, or transferential dynamics. Andrew Samuels, whose 1985 taxonomy remains the indispensable cartography of this terrain, locates the Archetypal School's clinical and theoretical signature in its ordering of priorities: archetypal imagery first, the self second, personal development a distant third. The School's intellectual identity was forged principally by James Hillman, who coined the term 'archetypal psychology' in 1970 and argued that 'archetypal' was not merely a modifier but the most ontologically fundamental concept in Jung's entire output — the archetype as the irreducible organ of psychic life. What Hillman inaugurated was not a refinement of Jungian technique but a revisioning of psychology itself: a polytheistic, image-centred, soul-making enterprise that deliberately resisted systematic closure. Critics, including Wolfgang Giegerich, have found the imaginal approach epistemologically insufficient. Defenders, including Hillman's own cadre of contributors to Spring Publications, treat the unsystematic stance as a philosophically necessary fidelity to the polymorphic nature of psyche. The School's relationship to classical Jungian orthodoxy remains constitutively ambivalent — recognizing Jung as source while refusing to honour him as doctrine.
The term archetypal psychology was first used by Hillman in 1970. The archetype underpins psychic life, is both precise and indefinable, and is central to Jung's conception of therapy.
Samuels identifies the Archetypal School's founding gesture — Hillman's 1970 coinage of 'archetypal psychology' — and defines its core proposition that the archetype is the most fundamental, if partly indefinable, organ of psychic life.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985thesis
The Archetypal School would consider archetypal imagery first, the self second, and development would receive less emphasis. Thus the ordering would be 1, 2, 3.
Samuels provides the defining typological matrix by which the Archetypal School is distinguished from the Classical and Developmental Schools through its explicit hierarchy of theoretical and clinical priorities.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985thesis
Goldenberg (1975) regards archetypal psychology as a 'third generation' derivative of the Jungian school in which Jung is recognized as the source but not the doctrine.
Hillman's own survey ratifies Goldenberg's generational framing, positioning the Archetypal School as a formation that acknowledges Jungian origins while actively refusing doctrinal fidelity to them.
, Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account, 1983thesis
To call this psychology today archetypal follows from its historical development. The earlier terms have, in a sense, been superseded by the concept of the archetype, which Jung had not yet worked out when he named his psychology.
Hillman argues that the denomination 'archetypal psychology' is not arbitrary but historically mandated, reflecting the logical terminus of Jung's own theoretical development.
, Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account, 1983thesis
We turn to the school of 'archetypal psychology' which is a further development of analytical psychology and was initiated by James Hillman... this school is in a deplorable state of affairs and has given up the very distinction that makes Jung's work singularly important.
Giegerich mounts a rigorous internal critique, acknowledging the Archetypal School as a genuine development within the Jungian tradition while arguing that its imaginal orientation abandons the very concept of soul that constitutes Jung's decisive contribution.
, The Soul’s Logical Life Towards a Rigorous Notion of, 2020thesis
Archetypal psychology first uncovered then avoided monotheistic notions of unity that are strong in classical Jungian thought, claiming such ideas invite a single mindedness that is anathema to meeting each psychological event on its own terms.
This passage articulates the Archetypal School's constitutive opposition to the monotheistic, unifying tendency of classical Jungian thought, grounding its polytheistic alternative in fidelity to the plurality of mythic and imaginal forms.
, Senex & Puer, 2015thesis
Goldenberg's third generation are simply not noticed in the other two classifications. The question of 'responsibility to Jung' may really be what distinguishes second from third generation post-Jungians.
Samuels isolates the sociological-generational criterion that most sharply differentiates the Archetypal School from its predecessors: the refusal of personal obligation to Jung as a founding authority.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985supporting
Archetypal psychology favors bringing non-ego figures to further awareness and considers this tension with the non-ego, which relativizes the ego's surety and single perspective, to be a chief occupation of soul-making.
Hillman defines the clinical and philosophical orientation of the Archetypal School through its valorisation of non-ego figures and the decentring of the ego as the privileged seat of psychic authority.
, Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account, 1983supporting
An archetypal image is psychologically 'universal,' because its effect amplifies and depersonalizes. Even if the notion of image regards each image as an individualized, unique event, such an image is universal because it resonates with collective, trans-empirical importance.
Hillman articulates the epistemological ground of archetypal psychology's claim to universality, locating it in the amplifying and depersonalising effects of the image rather than in abstract metaphysical hypostasis.
, Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account, 1983supporting
It no longer rests solely upon Jung's legacy of the twenty volumes of the Collected Works and his commensurate charisma. In a way, Jung needs the post-Jungians as much as they need him if his work is to be extended into the future.
Samuels frames the post-Jungian landscape, including the Archetypal School, as a necessary and reciprocal extension of Jung's work rather than a mere derivative or deviation.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985supporting
Post-Jungian thought is vigorous in its clinical dimension. Once Jungian thought branched out from Zurich and from Jung's enormous gravitational pull, this became unavoidable.
Sedgwick contextualises the branching of Jungian schools, including the Archetypal, as an inevitable consequence of the centrifugal movement away from the Zürich institutional centre.
, An Introduction to Jungian Psychotherapy: The Therapeutic Relationship, 2001supporting
What readers missed in these papers...was the sense of adventure to which they were accustomed by the inclusion of large philosophic ideas and the amplification of archetypal images with reference to religion, alchemy and primitive myths such as are to be found in Jungian literature from the pens of such writers as Neumann, von Franz, Adler, Hillman and others.
Henderson's review articulates the cultural expectation surrounding the Archetypal School — its association with philosophically ambitious, mythologically amplified inquiry — against which the Developmental School's clinical restraint registers as conspicuous contrast.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985supporting
The work done on archetypal structures in analytical psychology is considerably in advance of any other clinical methodology. The problem is to scale this down to the level of everyday life without losing the impact of the archetypal experience.
Samuels acknowledges the theoretical superiority of archetypal structural work within analytical psychology while identifying its persistent clinical challenge: translating numinous insight into ordinary therapeutic encounter.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985supporting
The introductory chapter alluded to three or four schools of Jungian psychology. Another slightly different differentiation can be made, this time between Jungian analysis and Jungian psychotherapy.
Sedgwick maps the plurality of Jungian schools, providing the clinical context within which the Archetypal School's distinctively non-developmental, image-centred orientation acquires its differential meaning.
, An Introduction to Jungian Psychotherapy: The Therapeutic Relationship, 2001supporting
Jung found that imagery fell into patterns, that these patterns were reminiscent of myth, legend and fairytale, and that the imaginal material did not originate in perceptions, memory or conscious experience.
Samuels traces the archetypal theory to its Jungian origins, establishing the empirical and imaginal basis upon which the Archetypal School's subsequent elaborations were constructed.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985supporting
Avens, Roberts (1980). Imagination Is Reality: Western Nirvana in Jung, Hillman, Barfield and Cassirer.
This bibliographic entry signals the breadth of the Archetypal School's intellectual affiliations, extending well beyond clinical Jungianism into comparative philosophy and the imagination tradition.
, Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account, 1983aside