Writers live by ideas; they are the very breath of words. So when I heard the news that James Hillman -- Jungian scholar, pioneering depth psychologist, renowned intellect, bestselling author, and many other things -- had died, I mourned his loss. How, I wondered, could I ever pay...

Editor's Note: Part of an ongoing series of interviews with psychologists on the American psyche.

On Sept. 11, 2001, psychohistorian Charles B. Strozier watched as the World Trade Center towers collapsed into dust. In the aftermath, Strozier, also a psychoanalyst, treated many who'd witnessed the disaster, even as they picked...

This week -- June 6 to be exact -- marks the 50th anniversary of the death of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, kicking off summer-long events around the world memorializing his life and work. In honor of this occasion, I thought I would post excerpts from an interview I conducted...

When I was in second grade, the Daughters of the American Revolution, in search of potential members, paid a visit to my classroom. As the child of an Argentine mother growing up in a rural Missouri town, I knew, even at that young age, that I'd never make the cut....

Those who despair over the gap between their vision of a more environmentally sustainable, just and peaceful planet and the world as it is can find inspiration in Corinne McLaughlin's call to become practical visionaries: Those activists, she says, who remain steady in their work over time by keeping their...

James Hillman -- psychologist, scholar, culture critic, and author of more than 20 books, including the bestselling "The Soul's Code" -- is one of the modern era's most original thinkers on the human and collective psyche.

Now approaching his 85th birthday, I spoke with Hillman as...

Jungian analyst and psychiatrist John Beebe has been a lifelong moviegoer as well as psychological teacher. In his lectures, he often draws on movies as a way to illuminate Jung's theory of psychological types and to discuss the drama of therapy. "Early in my teaching, I learned that...

Jungian analyst James Hillman -- psychologist, scholar, culture critic and author of more than twenty books, including the bestselling "The Soul's Code" -- is one of the modern era's most brilliant thinkers on the human and collective psyche.

Now approaching his 85th birthday, I...

Editor's note: This is the third in a series of interviews with contemporary Jungian analysts.

So here it is, the holiday season, with its crush of expectation and busyness. As belief systems collide -- tinsel town commercialism vs. the true meaning of Christmas; lusty American capitalism vs. a more aesthetic...

Thanksgiving came early for me this year. This past August, to be exact. That's when, after an absence of 27 years, I returned to the Missouri farm where my parents raised four kids, harvested crops and cared for livestock, a mythical place that in our family imagination is a bit...

Tank, a bulldog with a heart as loyal as a soldier, and Bojangles, a rambunctiously sweet rescue dog, were two of the loves of my life. Inseparable, they died within a year of each other. Believing that they had souls, I gave them as good a passage from this world...

An interview with Larry Staples, second in a series of interviews with contemporary Jungian analysts.

When I embarked on writing a memoir about my father seven years ago, I thought I'd be finished in a year, maybe two. Yet as time passed, putting Joe's story into words turned into its...

Call me dark, odd, or a bit of a mystic, but I've always been drawn to cemeteries. Far from feeling gloomy or morose, I find meandering among gravestones strangely calming. Stepping out of the mad rush of life and onto the hushed burial grounds of the dead is like crossing...

This is first in a series of Interviews with contemporary Jungian analysts

At the age of 81, with over 500,000 books in print, Marion Woodman is a wise elder in the field of Jungian psychology. As a leader in women's psychology and spirituality, and a pioneer in body and dream...

As a writer and explorer of the inner life, astrology has always fed the springs of my imagination. Like a kind of symbolic almanac, astrology marks the rhythmic ebb and flow of time as it unfolds through the solstices and equinoxes, the phases of the Moon, and the rising and...

At the height of the blizzard that hit Washington, D.C. several months ago, two of my favorite trees--one a huge oak, and the other a dogwood--became bent from the weight of the snow, their branches frozen in place. Throwing on a coat, I ran outside into the blinding white. Freeing...

The images of devastation in the wake of Haiti's earthquake follow me to bed, and continue to haunt my sleep: The lifeless limbs sticking out of the rubble. The homeless orphans. The amputations performed with hacksaws and vodka.

In the interest of getting a good night's rest, I've tried...

Few rhymes capture the enchantment of sleep like the lullaby "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod". Sailing off in a wooden shoe on a "river of crystal light, into a sea of dew," these "fishermen three" were sped by the wind beneath a moon that "laughed and sang a song." All night...

I grew up on a farm on the Western edge of Missouri, hard by Kansas. This was the prairie landscape of our frontier forebears, and upon its blank canvas the seasons were clearly marked. Year after year I watched as spring, summer, fall, and winter swept before me with all...