Psychic Life in the Age of Evanescence: Hillman Today

Lecture: Psychic Life in the Age of Evanescence: Hillman Today

Lecturer: Paulo Barone (Italian Association of Analytical Psychology, Milano)

Date: Friday, May 22, 2026, 6:30 p.m.

Place: Monte Verità (Ascona), Auditorium

Cycle: Eranos-Jung Lectures 20265 - Guided by the Daimon. James Hillman's (1926-2011) Legacy on the Hundredth Anniversary of his Birth

Language: Italian

Moderator: Fabio Merlini (Eranos Foundation, Ascona / SUFFP, Lugano)

Followed by discussion with the audience and aperitif

The video recording of the conference will be viewable on the official YouTube channel of the Eranos Foundation.

Lecture Presentation

The idea of a psychic life capable of overcoming its divisions and reuniting itself through its vicissitudes and sufferings owes much to the thinking of James Hillman. Starting with the introduction of the notion of the unconscious by Freud and Jung, who relativized the then-dominant view centered on ego consciousness, it was Hillman in particular who showed how this work of relativization was only just beginning, given that the predominance of ego consciousness subtly persisted in the very method of psychoanalysis that was supposed to combat it. For Hillman, it was therefore a question of completing the process of de-literalization that began with the introduction of the unconscious, transforming every literal dualism in which the mind is stuck in fear into a metaphorical bridge to be crossed freely. Transform your literal storehouse into images: this is Hillman's rule, almost a replica of the traditional recommendation to live life to the fullest, realizing all the possibilities available to you. But under what conditions does such an opportunity arise when the time in which we live culminates in the evanescence of all its forms and figures? Is there a foundation, an image, in the evanescence that characterizes our time?

Lecturer' Bio-bibliography

Paulo Barone, a graduate in Medicine and Philosophy specializing in Psychiatry, is a teaching analyst with the Italian Association of Analytical Psychology (AIPA, Milan). He obtained his Habilitation à diriger des recherches (HDR) in Philosophy at Paris 8 (France) and is an Honorary Professor at the Sanskriti Sanvardhan & Sanshodhan Pratishthan in Mumbai (India). Among his books, we mention here Età della polvere. Giacometti, Heidegger, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer e lo spazio estetico della caducità (1999), Lo junghismo. Sfiguramento e resti della vita psichica (2004), Spensierarsi. Raimon Panikkar e la macchina per cinguettare (2007), Utopia del presente (2012), Mystical Survival. The Geography of the Infinitely Near (2012), and Benares. Atlante del XXI secolo (2019). His most recent works are Giacometti et la fleur en danger (2023) and Il bisogno di introversione. La vocazione segreta del mondo contemporaneo (2023).

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In 2026, the Eranos Foundation intends to honor a figure who has brought prestige to the history of its meetings. This figure is the American psychologist James Hillman (1926-2011), whose 100th birthday is being celebrated this year. A highly regarded speaker at the famous Eranos Tagungen on several occasions, his innovative and courageous thinking contributed to the cultural renewal of analytical psychology, developing Jung's intuition of archetypes in unexpected directions and decisively returning the psyche to its imaginal role—more than a terrain to be interpreted, a horizon to be recognized and inhabited. This year, as we did last year with Carl Gustav Jung on the 150th anniversary of his birth, we do not intend to study Hillman analytically, but rather to be inspired by some of his most disruptive perspectives, allowing them to interact with the issues that concern us most today. The result will therefore be a very free and open dialogue with relevant aspects of his thinking, with the aim of shedding light on the current situation. Each speaker will thus be inspired as they see fit by a style of thinking that has taken psychology beyond the strictly clinical dimension, making it a heuristic tool for better understanding society and individuals. This is the lesson we will try to take advantage of.