Metaphor and Imaginal Psychology: A Hermetic Reflection provides the first full-length exploration of the significance of metaphor in post-Jungian psychology. Its portrayal of the mythological figure of Hermes as a personification of metaphor marks an original contribution to the field of metaphor studies. After a 2,500-year exile from philosophy and related areas of study, beginning with Plato’s ejection of the poets from the ideal city-state, metaphor is today experiencing a season of renewal. Among the fields where its significance as a way of seeing, thinking, and feeling has been especially prominent is archetypal psychology, perhaps the most philosophically attuned of psychological disciplines. Approaching the work of James Hillman and other key archetypal psychologists from a poststructuralist perspective, Metaphor and Imaginal Psychology draws insightful comparisons between archetypal psychology and the deconstructive philosophy of Jacques Derrida, a principle theorist of metaphor’s philosophical resurgence. By linking two disciplines that might at first appear as strange bedfellows, Metaphor and Imaginal Psychology underscores the influence of metaphor in reason and emotion, and makes a compelling case for the Mercurial ethos of our postmodern world. Aside from representing essential reading for therapists and theorists working in post-Jungian studies, the book will appeal to readers, students and scholars of literary criticism, psychology, philosophy and mythology.

his issue focuses on imaginal psychology, a newly coalescing orientation to psychology with an ancient taproot. Imaginal psychology stands alongside other major orientations to psychology- cognitive behavioral, depth, humanistic and transpersonal. What is distinctive to imaginal psychology is its care of the soul. The soul expresses itself primarily in images, from whence this orientation derives its name. Some theorists associated with the orientation of imaginal psychology include James Hillman, Thomas Moore, Aftab Omer, Jean Houston, Shawn McNiff, Robert Sardello and Mary Watkins. Articles in this issue showcase the versatility of imaginal psychology to wrestle with difficult social issues that too often fall off the radar of psychology: soullessness and evil, class identity and shame, accountability in broken relationships where harm and injury have been caused; and collective historical trauma

Mary Harrell unflinchingly greets a cast of imaginal figures who inhabit her life, and encourages all of us to welcome their wisdom into our own inner landscapes. These very real beings dwell in a realm between matter (nature) and mind (reason), appearing in dreams, intuitive callings, visions, feelings, and sometimes frightening events. Mary offers her own intimate experiences through which she explores and engages these figures, showing her readers how to host these beings as one would host invited guests. From the work of philosopher Henry Corbin, psychiatrist C. G. Jung, and psychologist James Hillman, we know that the name of the realm in which these figures dwell is the mundus imaginalis, or the imaginal world. As this is a work in which archetypes are grounded in experience, Imaginal Figures In Everyday Life: Stories from the World between Matter and Mind is both a path to individual transformation and, in the words of psychologist Robert Romanyshyn, “a therapy of culture.” Mary Harrell, Ph.D., a Jungian-oriented psychotherapist and New York licensed psychologist, received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with Emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, California. She is Curriculum and Instruction Associate Professor Emeritus at State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego. While at the university she taught education and psychology courses and served as Professional Development Schools (PDS) specialist, supporting the National PDS initiative, which builds bridges between elementary and secondary schools and the university’s School of Education. Her writings in the areas of educational reform, and imaginal psychology appear in four invited chapters in edited books. In 2014 Mary’s poetry was anthologized in Syracuse University’s The Stone Canoe, a Journal of Arts, Literature and Social Commentary, No. 8. She lives with her husband, Stephen, in South Carolina.

Hiroshima claims a crucial yet neglected place in the psychic terrain of our individual and collective memories. Drawing on recent work in depth psychology and Jungian thought, this study explores the ancient art of remembering by envisioning "places" and "images" that are impressed upon the memory. Enthusiastically used by ancient, medieval, and Renaissance explorers of soul and spirit, the art of memory became a profound expression of striving for cultural reform and an end to religious cruelty. Imaginal Memory and the Place of Hiroshima shows that images arising from the place of Hiroshima reveal, with stark exactitude, the psychic situation of our world. Specific images are explored that embody unsuspected psychological values beyond their role as reminders of the concrete horror of nuclear war. The process of remembering these images deepens into a commemoration of the fundamental powers at work in the psyche—powers that are critical to the development of a sustained cultural commitment to peace and to the deepening and revitalizing of contemporary psychological life.

"I have entitled this book For Love of the Imagination. Long ago, I fell in love with the imagination. It was love at first sight. I have had a lifelong love affair with the imagination. I would love for others, through this book, to fall in love, as I once did, with the imagination." Michael Vannoy Adams, from the Preface. For Love of the Imagination is a book about the imagination – about what and how images mean. Jungian psychoanalysis is an imaginal psychology – or what Michael Vannoy Adams calls "imaginology," the study of the imagination. What is so distinctive – and so valuable – about Jungian psychoanalysis is that it emphasizes images. For Love of the Imagination is also a book about interdisciplinary applications of Jungian psychoanalysis. What enables these applications is that all disciplines include images of which they are more or less unconscious. Jungian psychoanalysis is in an enviable position to render these images conscious, to specify what and how they mean. On the contemporary scene, as a result of the digital revolution, there is no trendier word than "applications" – except, perhaps, the abbreviation "apps." In psychoanalysis, there is a "Freudian app" and a "Jungian app." The "Jungian app" is a technology of the imagination. This book applies Jungian psychoanalysis to images in a variety of disciplines. For Love of the Imagination also includes the 2011 Moscow lectures on Jungian psychoanalysis. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, students, and those with an interest in Jung.

Developed in the spirit of C.G. Jung, and extended by the work of James Hillman, Depth Psychology: Meditations in the Field grows directly from the soil of the Romantic Movement of the 19th century, itself a rebellion against the legacy of Enlightenment fundamentalism, which emphasized the literal reality of the world, and feasted on Measurement and the quantification of all knowledge.