On Melancholy & Depression

On Melancholy & Depression, Volume 11 of the Uniform Edition of the Writings of James Hillman, combines a talk delivered by Hillman in Rome in 1999 on melancholy with an edited transcript of three seminars on the subject of melancholy and depression held at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, California: “In Defense of Melancholy” (1992), “Depressive Syndromes” (1994), and “The Place of Depression in a Manic Civilization” (2000).

"The true revolution begins in the individual who can be true to his or her depression. Neither jerking oneself out of it, caught in cycles of hype and despair, nor suffering it through till it turns, nor theologizing it―but discovering the consciousness and depths it wants. So begins the revolution in behalf of soul."

―James Hillman, Re-Visioning Psychology

The pioneering imaginative psychology of JAMES HILLMAN (1926–2011) spans five decades. It has entered cultural history, affecting lives and minds in a wide range of fields. For the creativity of his thinking, the originator of Archetypal Psychology and author of A Terrible Love of War, The Soul’s Code, The Force of Character, Re-Visioning Psychology, and The Myth of Analysis, has received many honors, including the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic. He has held distinguished lectureships at the Universities of Yale, Princeton, Chicago, and Syracuse, and his books have been translated into some twenty languages. In 2004 SPRING began publication of the clothbound Uniform Edition of the Writings of James Hillman that unites major lectures, occasional writings, scholarly essays, clinical papers, and interviews―arranged thematically.