James Hillman

Suicide and the Soul (Dunquin) James Hillman 1st edition

With this book James Hillman initiated the "soul movement" in psychotherapy forty years ago.

Soul and suicide are dominant issues of this new millenium; soul because it cannot be reduced to genes and chromosomes; suicide because it raises fundamental religious, political, and legal conflicts. As Hillman writes in the postscript to the second edition: "The individual consists of more than his or her personal individuality. Something besides 'myself' inhabits the soul, takes part in its life and has a say in its death . . . We need a . . . definition of self as the interiorization of community. Suicide, literally 'self-killing,' now would mean both a killing of community and involvement of community in the killing."

This new edition is introduced by the eminent psychiatrist and pioneering social critic, Thomas Szasz.