Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Thought provoking book

I just finished reading the book “We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World is Getting Worse” by James Hillman and Michael Ventura. It was written in the early 1990s, and if you like to challenge your thinking, it’s a good read. The main premise is that psychotherapy is making the world more narcissistic and individualistic by encouraging clients to look within themselves to solve their problems. The cure is to consider the macro influences in one’s life and look for a more relationship or community based answer.
Hillman came up with archetypal therapy, which doesn’t sound too promising to me personally, but his thoughts have been helpful to me in introducing mezzo or macro solution possibilities to my clients. I’d be interested in pursuing that conversation if anyone is interested.
Hillman specifically states that the purpose of the book is to introduce ideas and ask questions, not necessarily find answers. In that regard I liked it because it does challenge your thinking. I didn’t agree with all of the content (including some of the foul language), but for finding different ways of looking at things it is helpful.

1 comment:

  1. This is a great article and gave me a great new perspective on things! Thanks for sharing this.

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