THOMPSON, Conn., Oct. 28 (UPI) -- James Hillman, a therapist and best-selling author whose theories about the psyche spurred the so-called men's movement in the 1990s, has died, his wife said.
Hillman, who was 85, died Thursday at his home in Thompson, Conn., of complications from bone cancer, Margot McLean-Hillman told The New York Times.
Hillman became the director of studies at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich in 1959, reviving interest in the ideas of Carl Jung that challenged standard psychotherapies by saying the best insights into understanding the human mind came from myth and imagination rather than standard psychological or medical concepts.
Traditional psychology's narrow focus on pathology only led to feelings of anxiety and depression, he argued in his writings.
In the late 1980s, Hillman began leading conferences exploring male archetypes in myths, fairy tales and poems that found great acceptance with middle-aged men who, by the early 1990s, were participating workshops and retreats across the country complete with drumming, sweat lodges and shout-outs to ancient ancestors.
