ABSTRACT
The political philosopher Sheldon Wolin raises a critical question: “Can the citizen relearn the demands that democracy places on its highest, most difficult office—not, as commonly supposed, on the office of the president, but that of the citizen?” It is in relation to this relearning of citizenship that the work of the archetypal psychologist James Hillman is of political consequence. While his project was to re-vision psychology, Hillman’s vision extended beyond to the world at large, including American democracy and the life of the citizen. He called into question the unconscious assumptions of the disordered world that gives rise to the citizen’s suffering—the inextricably entwined suffering of psychological repression and political oppression. The political import of Hillman’s work is amplified when considered in relation to Wolin’s notion of “fugitive democracy” and its accompanying necessity of both a democratization of the self and the cultivation of the citizenry’s capacity to engage in deliberations which concurrently recognize diversity and are informed by a sense of the common good. Psychology’s therapeutic practices are then understood to be most politically relevant when they are aligned with the awakening of a distressed citizenry to the possibilities of genuine democratic participation.
