Suicide and the Soul: No. 8

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.