Most Popular Books by James Hollis

Why are we here? What is the meaning of existence? What truly matters the most in life? To even begin to answer these questions, we must start by exploring our own internal ideals, values, and beliefs. Presenting the unique perspective of respected analyst and author James Hollis, Ph.D., What Matters Most helps readers learn to appreciate (even be amazed by) events unfolding within, even as the external world creates constant struggles.

What does it really mean to be a grown up in today’s world? We assume that once we “get it together” with the right job, marry the right person, have children, and buy a home, all is settled and well. But adulthood presents varying levels of growth, and is rarely the respite of stability we expected. Turbulent emotional shifts can take place anywhere between the age of thirty-five and seventy when we question the choices we’ve made, realize our limitations, and feel stuck—commonly known as the “midlife crisis.” Jungian psycho-analyst James Hollis believes it is only in the second half of life that we can truly come to know who we are and thus create a life that has meaning. In Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, Hollis explores the ways we can grow and evolve to fully become ourselves when the traditional roles of adulthood aren’t quite working for us, revealing a new way of uncovering and embracing our authentic selves. Offering wisdom to anyone facing a career that no longer seems fulfilling, a long-term relationship that has shifted, or family transitions that raise issues of aging and mortality, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life provides a reassuring message and a crucial bridge across this critical passage of adult development.

Title #59. Why do so many go through so much disruption in their middle years? Why then? Why do we consider it to be a crisis? What does the pattern mean and how can we survive it? The Middle Passage shows how we may pass through midlife consciously, rendering our lives more meaningful and the second half of life immeasurably richer.

A Masterful Author and Jungian Analyst Examines the Qualities That Bring Meaning to Our Human Journey. What is it that brings meaning to your life? Our culture tells us to seek wealth, power, prestige, or even enrollment in someone else’s idea of a worthy cause—yet where do we turn when these paths fail to fulfill our need for purpose? “When the old stories and beliefs that once defined us have played out and grown exhausted,” teaches Dr. James Hollis, “our task is to access our inner compass, the promptings of the psyche that help us find our way through the complex thickets of choice.” A Life of Meaning is Hollis’s profound exploration of the nature of meaning and how we can orient toward it or away from it with the choices we make. Hollis offers an examination of myth, literature, historical figures, and the wisdom of depth psychology that provides penetrating insight into the search for purpose. Join him to explore: • How even cherished narratives splinter and lose potency over time • Why dreams are windows into your internalized patterns and base assumptions • How to excavate and understand your earliest, most foundational beliefs • The power of fear and how it shapes unconscious reactions • Recognizing and rising to the occasion of a “summons of the soul” • How to anchor yourself during times of uncertainty and change • Why it’s important to be aware of and closely examine your shadow • How to reckon with old feelings of shame, betrayal, resentment, and regret We all have to discover our own sense of meaning. No one else can do it for us. In A Life of Meaning, Hollis offers no easy answers or feel-good certainties—instead, he shares his most valuable questions and reflections to help you find the courage, persistence, and inspiration to navigate your own odyssey. “It’s humbling work, this process of getting our lives back,” he teaches. “Yet I submit to you that’s worth the price of the ticket, for in the journey our lives become ever more luminous.”

Working with the Shadow is not working with evil, per se. It is working toward the possibility of greater wholeness. We will never experience healing until we can come to love our unlovable places, for they, too, ask love of us. How is it that good people do bad things? Why is our personal story and our societal history so bloody, so repetitive, so injurious to self and others? How do we make sense of the discrepancies between who we think we are—or who we show to the outside world—versus our everyday behaviors? Why are otherwise ordinary people driven to addictions and compulsions, whether alcohol, drugs, food, shopping, infidelity, or the Internet? Why are interpersonal relationships so often filled with strife? Exploring Jung’s concept of the Shadow—the unconscious parts of our self that contradict the image of the self we hope to project--Why Good People Do Bad Things guides you through all the ways in which many of our seemingly unexplainable behaviors are manifestations of the Shadow. In addition to its presence in our personal lives, Hollis looks at the larger picture of the Shadow at work in our culture—from organized religion to the suffering and injustice that abounds in our modern world. Accepting and examining the Shadow as part of one’s self, Hollis suggests, is the first step toward wholeness. Revealing a new way of understanding our darker selves, Hollis offers wisdom to help you to acquire a more conscious conduct of your life and bring a new level of awareness to your daily actions and choices.

What does life ask of us, and how are we to answer that summons? Are we here just to propagate the species anew? Do any of us really believe that we are here to make money and then die? Does life matter, in the end, and if so, how, and in what fashion? What guiding intelligence weaves the threads of our individual biographies? What hauntings of the invisible world invigorate, animate, and direct the multiple narratives of daily life? In Hauntings, James Hollis considers how we are all governed by the presence of invisible forms--spirits, ghosts, ancestral and parental influences, inner voices, dreams, impulses, untold stories, complexes, synchronicities, and mysteries--that move through us and through history. He offers a way to understand them psychologically, examining the persistence of the past in influencing our present, conscious lives and noting that engagement with mystery is what life asks of each of us. From such engagements, a deeper, more thoughtful, more considered life may come. "James Hollis is the most lucid thinker I know about the complexities and complexes that interfere with living a full life.... He is one of our great teachers and healers." --Stephen Dunn, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet

An Invitation to Listen to Your Soul’s Calling How do you define "growing up"? Does it mean you achieve certain cultural benchmarks—a steady income, paying taxes, marriage, and children? Or does it mean leaving behind the expectations of others and growing into the person you were meant to be? If you find yourself in a career, place, relationship, or crisis you never foresaw or that seems at odds with your beliefs about who you are, it means your soul is calling on you to reexamine your path. With Living an Examined Life, James Hollis offers an essential guidebook for anyone at a crossroads in life. Here this acclaimed author guides you through 21 areas for self-inquiry and growth, challenging you to: • Recover Personal Authority—how to stop living in response to the expectations placed on you • Choose Meaning Over Happiness—why seeking truth instead of entertaining distractions ultimately leads to greater fulfillment • Exorcise the Ghosts of the Past That Bind You—how the voices that haunt you can lead you to grow • Bestow Love on the Unlovable Parts of You—recovering the guiding force concealed in your Shadow • Construct a Mature Spirituality—the five essential elements of integrating meaning and mystery into your life • Seize Permission to Be Who You Really Are—the challenge of fully showing up for your life With his trademark eloquence and insight, Dr. Hollis offers Living an Examined Life to inspire you toward a life of personal authority, integrity, and fulfillment. "It is my hope that this book will be a tool to recover your respect for that which abides deeply within," writes Dr. Hollis. "You will not be spared disappointment or suffering. But you can know the depth and dignity of an authentic journey, of being a real player in your time on this turning planet, and your life will become more interesting, taking you deeper than ever before."

Ask yourself, ''When do I feel most real?'' What comes up on the screen? All of us have had moments in our lives when we felt whole or wholly present, or experienced a sense of well-being, an intuition of a higher order of reality. Such moments are transitory, alas, and cannot be summoned up by will or mind or right conduct, just as the person who seeks humility finds more and more that pride and one-sidedness push the goal further and further away. - excerpt from Creating A Life

Prisms: Reflections on the Journey We Call Life summarizes a lifetime of observing, engaging, and exploring why we are here, in service to what, and what life asks of us. These eleven essays, all written recently, examine how we understand ourselves, and often we have to reframe that understanding, the nature and gift of comedy, the imagination, desire, as well as our encounters with narcissism, and aging. James Hollis, Ph.D., a Jungian Analyst in Washington, D.C., explores the roadblocks we encounter and our on-going challenge to live our brief journey with as much courage, insight, and resolve as we can bring to the table.

Saturn was the Roman god who ate his childern to stop them from usurping his power. Men have been psychologically and spiritually wounded by this legacy. Hollis offers a rich perspective on the secrets men carry in their hearts.

Although it has been many years since my service in the Military and it was for only two years, it was an important period of my life. I learned a lot in those two years that has helped me throughout my life. In the effort to write this book it has taken me back in time, reviving memories of old friends and things that have happened. I have tried to write of things I consider important. I have been fortunate to have lived long enough to become a old man. I know it was just by the luck of the draw that I was put where I was. I never volunteered for anything, nor did I try to get out of any order given to me. I am well aware I could have been put in the infantry instead of the artillery, where I did my time in the intelligence section. Most of the time a soldier happens to serve in duties he has no control over. This book has been written as much for my family and friends as for the general public. I hope all who takes the time to read what I have written will gain knowledge regarding the Korean War, and also my story is just one of the thousands of stories of young men who served their country at this time. For us the veterans, and our families IT WILL NEVER BECOME THE "FORGOTTEN WAR". REMEMBER THIS, FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

What does life ask of us, and how are we to answer that summons? Are we here just to propagate the species anew? Do any of us really believe that we are here to make money and then die? Does life matter, in the end, and if so, how, and in what fashion? What guiding intelligence weaves the threads of our individual biographies? What hauntings of the invisible world invigorate, animate, and direct the multiple narratives of daily life? In Hauntings, James Hollis considers how we are all governed by the presence of invisible forms-spirits, ghosts, ancestral and parental influences, inner voices, dreams, impulses, untold stories, complexes, synchronicities, and mysteries-which move through us, and through history. He offers a way to understand them psychologically, examining the persistence of the past in influencing our present, conscious lives and noting that engagement with mystery is what life asks of each of us. From such engagements, a deeper, more thoughtful, more considered life may come. James Hollis, PhD, is a co-founder of the C. G. Jung Institute of Philadelphia and Saybrook University''s Jungian Studies program, director emeritus of the Jung Center of Houston, vice president emeritus of the Philemon Foundation, and an adjunct professor at Saybrook University and Pacifica Graduate Institute. He resides in Houston, Texas, where he conducts an analytic practice.

What guides us when our world is changing? Discover the path to deeper meaning and purpose through depth psychology and classical thought. How did we get to this crossroads in history? And will we make it through—individually and as a species? “We all assumed that learning, rationality, and good intentions would prove enough to bring us to the promised land,” says James Hollis. “But they haven’t and won’t. Yet what we also do not recognize sufficiently is that this human animal is equipped for survival. In time, as we have seen of life’s other insolubles, we grow large enough to contain what threatened to destroy us.” Dr. Hollis’s readers know him as a penetrating thinker who brings profound insight and sophistication to the inner journey. In Living Between Worlds, he broadens his lens to encompass the relationship between our inner struggles and the rapidly shifting realities of modern human existence. You will learn to invoke the tools of depth psychology, classical literature, philosophy, dream work, and myth to gain access to the resources that supported our ancestors through their darkest hours. Through these paths of inner exploration, you will access your “locus of knowing”—a wellspring of deep resilience beyond the ego, always available to guide you back to the imperatives of your soul. Though many of the challenges of our times are unique, the path through for us, personally and collectively, will always rely on our measureless capacity for creativity, wisdom, and connection to a reality larger than ourselves. Here you will find no easy answers or pat reassurances. Yet within the pages of Living Between Worlds, you will encounter causes for hope. “We can find what supports us when nothing supports us,” Hollis teaches. “By bearing the unbearable, we go through the desert to arrive at a nurturing oasis we did not know was there.”

Whatever our cultural and religious background or personal psychology, a greater intimacy with myth provides a vital link with meaning, the absence of which is so often behind the neuroses of our time. Here the acclaimed author of The Middle Passage (title 59) explains why a connection with our mythic roots is crucial for us as individuals and as responsible citizens of our age.

Also available in an open-access, full-text edition at http: //oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/85764 "What we wish to know, and most desire, remains unknowable and lies beyond our grasp." With these words, James Hollis leads readers to consider the nature of our human need for meaning in life and for connection to a world less limiting than our own. In The Archetypal Imagination, Hollis offers a lyrical Jungian appreciation of the archetypal imagination. He argues that without the human mind''s ability to form energy-filled images that link us to worlds beyond our rational and emotional capacities, we would have neither culture nor spirituality. Drawing upon the work of poets and philosophers, Hollis shows the importance of depth experience, meaning, and connection to an "other" world. Just as humans have instincts for biological survival and social interaction, we have instincts for spiritual connection as well. Just as our physical and social needs seek satisfaction, so the spiritual instincts of the human animal are expressed in images we form to evoke an emotional or spiritual response, as in our dreams, myths, and religious traditions. The author draws upon the work of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke''s Duino Elegies to elucidate the archetypal imagination in literary forms. To underscore the importance of incarnating depth experience, he also examines a series of paintings by Nancy Witt. With the power of the archetypal imagination available to all of us, we are invited to summon courage to take on the world anew, to relinquish outmoded identities and defenses, and to risk a radical re-imagining of the larger possibilities of the world and of the self.

James Hollis examines society''s fixed views and fantasies in regards to relationships. This text is not a practical guide on how to fix a relationship, but rather a challenge to greater personal responsibility, a call for individual growth as opposed to seeking rescue through others.

From bestselling author and Jungian psychoanalyst Dr. James Hollis comes a new collection of essays exploring life’s challenges and celebrating evolving questions on life’s mysterious journey. In a world seemingly set up for distraction, life can often feel like it’s dividing you not only from others but also from yourself. Yet even within the cacophony of life, deep down you can intuit your own soul, that part of you that knows you better than you know yourself, and that offers direction and moments of solace, even amid uncertainty. This disconnect from your inner source of guidance leads to self-doubt, but in Living with Borrowed Dust, Hollis provides a reminder that you carry within what you’re so anxiously looking for from a crazed world. “Behind the noise and beneath the surface, something in the soul of each of us cries out,” he says. “While we may be distracted from this summons, the soul keeps asking that we pay attention.” These summonses come to us through symptoms, dreams, and restless nights. Gaining insight into these inner callings, the meaning within our challenges, and the courage it takes to move through our journey can help us feel better connected through difficult times. Here, Hollis reveals tools you can utilize to engage in this conversation with the soul. In this collection of essays, readers are guided to reflect deeply on questions that explore and celebrate life''s challenges in our evolving world, including how happiness is attained, how to approach your dreams, the divided soul of America, the fear and fascination with death, and the conflict between good and evil. With each new insight, Hollis aims to steer you toward an individual, self-determining path, zeroing in on the need for personal accountability and decisive growth. Using analytic psychology as a vehicle for the recovery of a spiritual life in a secular age, you’ll find inspiration for reconnecting with deep wisdom, bringing renewed purpose and dignity to this mysterious journey called life.

Arguing that the pursuit of happiness is futile, the Jungian perspective asserts that the goal of life is not in happiness, but in meaning which is real, rather than a fruitless ideal. This book shows how to find life''s dignity by uncovering its deepest meaning and discovering errors made.

Tales told by shadowy elders around ancient campfires offered both explanation and comfort. Life hasn''t changed that much; our dependence on explanation and comfort still lies just under our busy ambition and constant yearning. Most of the time, the basic assumptions of our early years were so viscerally absorbed that we have never made them articulate, and therefore never had any way to evaluate their relevance for us now. What if they are outdated? Immature? Beside the point? In this new volume, James Hollis shows us a way to bring those stories to consciousness -- what questions to ask, and when. And also what to expect of ourselves in the process. This is not a quick fix book; in fact, waking up to our truth is sometimes very painful. But it''s real. And it may be the only way to discover that sense of meaning and personal authenticity that no amount of outer success can provide. Book jacket.

Doctor Blake hit accidentally by a Florentine bus is trying to write a letter to his sister about his hospitalization and a vivid dream he has been having since being injured, when he slips back into the dream again. His transition into the fifteenth century opens on a bench in the Piazza Strozzi where upon his awakening there he experiences in a dream state, an imagined life of Vespasiano da Bisticci from youth and ultimately to old age. Vespo and his best friend Mario experience the active and contemplative lives in a flurry of adventures in battles, meeting some of the major political and artistic personalities in fifteenth century Florence, meeting and becoming involved with women, one of who becomes significant to the history of the Italian Renaissance. This story is a gripping and revealing story about life in a late medieval-early Renaissance city, the history of which became the foundation of modern thinking, art and science. To the informed reader, the players are real, and likewise the relevance of the tribulations of the fifteenth century to the twenty-first. This book is written as a screenplay rather than as a novel to emphasize the power of visual images so important to the Florentines. Conventional symbols of the past yield to a new image of reality and the human condition in this critical time in history so faithfully recorded in Vespasiano da Bisticci''s Lives of the Most Eminent Men of the Fifteenth Century.

What does life ask of us, and how are we to answer that summons? Are we here just to propagate the species anew? Do any of us really believe that we are here to make money and then die? Does life matter, in the end, and if so, how, and in what fashion? What guiding intelligence weaves the threads of our individual biographies? What hauntings of the invisible world invigorate, animate, and direct the multiple narratives of daily life? In Hauntings, James Hollis considers how we are all governed by the presence of invisible forms-spirits, ghosts, ancestral and parental influences, inner voices, dreams, impulses, untold stories, complexes, synchronicities, and mysteries-which move through us, and through history. He offers a way to understand them psychologically, examining the persistence of the past in influencing our present, conscious lives and noting that engagement with mystery is what life asks of each of us. From such engagements, a deeper, more thoughtful, more considered life may come. James Hollis, PhD, is a co-founder of the C. G. Jung Institute of Philadelphia and Saybrook University''s Jungian Studies program, director emeritus of the Jung Center of Houston, vice president emeritus of the Philemon Foundation, and an adjunct professor at Saybrook University and Pacifica Graduate Institute. He resides in Houston, Texas, where he conducts an analytic practice.

Author James Hollis'' eloquent reading provides the listener with an accessible and yet profound understanding of a universal condition - or what is commonly referred to as the mid-life crisis. The book shows how we may travel this Middle Passage consciously, thereby rendering our lives more meaningful and the second half of life immeasurably richer.

Het verleden is niet dood, het is niet eens voorbij. Kom er met James Hollis achter hoe jij door spoken uit het verleden beïnvloed wordt en hoe je ermee in het reine komt. We worden allemaal beïnvloed of beheerst door allerlei onzichtbare maar alom aanwezige krachten die ons zo nu en dan kunnen dienen, maar vaker in de weg blijken staan. Denk aan (voor)ouderlijke invloeden, innerlijke stemmen, dromen, impulsen, complexen en geheimen die ons leven vaak meer sturen dan we willen, kunnen en durven toegeven. Deze spookverschijningen dwalen door ons en de geschiedenis heen. James Hollis maakt in ''Niet langer achtervolgd door het verleden'' duidelijk hoe belangrijk het is om tot je door te laten dringen hoe je erdoor geleid wordt. Het verleden blijft je namelijk hardnekkig achtervolgen als je geen aandacht geeft aan wat je dwarszit en tegenhoudt. Wie deze onzichtbare wereld durft te ‘zien’ en in het reine komt met wat was, gaat op weg naar een bewuster en meer vervuld leven. We zijn in staat om storende invloeden te weerstaan en worden niet langer achtervolgd door het verleden.

Saturne était ce dieu tyrannique qui, de peur que ne s''accomplisse la prédiction selon laquelle il serait détrôné par l''un de ses fils, exigeait de sa femme qu''elle lui livre chacun de ses nouveau-nés mâles, qu''il dévorait aussitôt. Tout au long de l''histoire, les hommes ont été accablés psychologiquement et spirituellement par l''héritage saturnien, pâtissant de la corruption de leur pouvoir, dominés par leur peur des femmes et des autres hommes, se blessant eux-mêmes et blessant les autres. Ces problèmes, et bien d''autres, sont abordés dans ce livre qui propose des moyens permettant aux hommes de restaurer leur intégrité personnelle. Les femmes, tout comme les hommes, l''apprécieront non seulement pour son élucidation des « secrets » que les hommes portent dans leur coeur, mais également pour sa perspective féconde sur ce que nous devons tous entreprendre pour nous libérer de l''emprise du patriarcat.

盤點過往，重啟人生，與你靈魂的召喚久別重逢 當你開始意識到時光有限，如何重新思考人生的重要排序？ ・榮格心理學名家、《中年之路》作者──經典著作 ・《中年之路》譯者鐘穎老師──專文推薦 你一直在過著誰的生活？ 是什麼將你帶至人生旅程的此時此地？ 為何即使一帆風順，還是感覺哪裡不對勁？ 為何那麼多事，最後都是失望收尾？ 你目前的人生，已滿足靈魂的渴望了嗎？ 現在是你最接近覺醒，展開「第二次人生」的時候。 本書簡介 許多人在三十至四十多歲時，迎來人生各種的動盪和困惑，發現自己一直在過著別人期待的人生，根本不知道自己是誰，想要的是什麼，甚至不知道為何而活，於是開始深思：自己要度過怎樣的人生下半場？ 本書作者霍利斯博士在三十五歲時，因中年憂鬱開始接受第一次心理治療，那成為改變他日後人生的開始。他以自身閱歷與從業多年來豐富的個案經驗，寫成這本書，期盼為尋覓人生意義的人們，提供擴展覺知及聆聽內在的途徑。 本書是為了喚起你的個人覺醒，告別無意義的反覆迴圈，試圖從心理學的角度來思索人生下半場的價值與中年的意義，作者文字溫暖療癒，同時又不斷挑戰並鼓舞著我們，適時跳脫舒適圈，去回應生命所提出的靈魂召喚。 各界推薦 李全興（我是老查）╱數位轉型顧問、商業好書說書人 洪仲清╱臨床心理師 陳宏儒╱諮商心理師 愛瑞克╱《內在成就》系列作者、TMBA共同創辦人 楊斯棓╱家醫科醫師、《要有一個人》作者 鄭俊德╱閱讀人社群主編 盧美妏╱人生設計心理諮商所共同創辦人、諮商心理師 蘇予昕╱蘇予昕心理諮商所所長、暢銷作家 蘇益賢╱臨床心理師 鐘穎╱心理學作家、《中年之路》譯者 （以上按姓氏筆畫排列） 「無論我們是否實現了前半生的抱負或目標，中年時我們都可能因為各種原因感受到煩躁與不安，因為靈魂的目標已經覺醒，意欲追求完整（而非成就）。」 ──鐘穎（愛智者）╱《中年之路》、《榮格心理學辭典》譯者 「中年是人們可能感到迷惘及不知所措的時期。榮格分析心理學家詹姆斯‧霍利斯深知這個領域，提出了可以引導我們走向清晰、成熟和意義的重要問題。」 ──讓‧篠田‧波倫（Jean Shinoda Bolen），《女人中的女神》（Goddesses in Everywoman）作者 「詹姆斯‧霍利斯的新書是一部焠鍊靈魂的作品，它為我們這些在人生的下半場感到迷惘的人帶來了慰藉和智慧。」 ──愛德華‧赫希（Edward Hirsch），《如何閱讀詩歌並愛上詩歌》（How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry）作者 「霍利斯所謂的中年最大課題：恢復個人權威。這意味著捨棄那些舒適但囚禁你的一切。」 ──《More雜誌》 「這本重要的書揭示了種種幻相，並為讓人生有意義的艱鉅任務，提出必要的靈魂功課。」 ──史蒂芬‧鄧恩（Stephen Dunn），普利茲獎詩人 「詹姆斯‧霍利斯是全球最頂尖的榮格分析心理學家，他對靈魂有很多話要說……博學又有素養，卻又通俗易懂。」 ──《波特蘭論壇報》（Portland Tribune） 「對尋找人生後期的真正意義的過程有深入的洞察……發人省思……真摯懇切。」 ──《休斯頓紀事報》 「對個體化進行深入的榮格式探索……既仁慈又有同情心……（霍利斯）對人生潛藏的意義的關注將引起許多人的共鳴。」 ──《出版者週刊》（Publishers Weekly） 「一位溫柔又有洞見的靈魂所寫的文字；他沒有陷入枯燥的分析，而是發自內心來講述及教導……真實的遠見和真正的仁慈是稀有且珍貴的禮物，而讀者將在本書中發現兩者。」 ──克拉麗莎‧平科拉‧埃斯特斯（Clarissa Pinkola Estés），《與狼同奔的女人》（Women Who Run with the Wolves）作者

Knihou Uvědomělý život James Hollis čtenáři nabízí výjimečného průvodce pro všechny, kteří stojí na životní křižovatce. Uznávaný autor a psychoterapeut vás provede dvaceti jedna oblastmi introspekce a vnitřního růstu — například jak vymýtit přízraky z minulosti, proč upřednostnit smysl před štěstím, jak si vybudovat vyzrálou spiritualitu nebo jakým způsobem se chopit svolení být tím, kým opravdu jste. Dr. Hollis vám s výmluvností a vhledem sobě vlastním dává do rukou zdroj hluboké moudrosti, k němuž se budete opakovaně vracet, abyste na své cestě za životem vnitřní autority, integrity a naplnění načerpali energii a inspiraci.