Soul-making

According to James Hillman, the purpose of life may be to make psyche from the psychological: to find connections between life and the soul, that which is there when everything else – including consciousness and ego – is not there. He defines the perspective of the soul as: the deepening of events into experiences; the significance derived from relationship with death; the recognition that all realities are symbolic and that therefore imagination – reflection, dreams, fantasy and so on – is also recognized as real. Archetypes (and thus primitive images, totems and idols) have real significance, as do the personifications of such metaphorical ideas as time, fame, friendship, etc; this is referred to as en-souling such ideas. En-souling and giving of names to things other than one's self helps to define the self (as other than those things named).

By seeing the many personalities and roles one possesses as also "other" one frees one's self from self-tyranny and learns to trust the imagination. Psychological reflection in soul-making is work on the anima through images, personifying the multiple voices which are seen as enacted by the (depersonified or impersonal) "me" that is projected by the soul. Depth psychology may thus be redefined as simply the making of the soul.