Case History/Soul History – James Hillman

James Hillman (2009) Hillman reveals how to bring “soul talk” back into modern psychotherapy. The case history of a client is the diagnosis, present complaint, family history, employment history, but nothing of the “soul” of the person. Dr. Hillman assures us that we can almost ignore the case history. Using “soul” talk (Longings, dreams, secrets, how a client accepts joy and sorrow) takes the session out of the box and returns a resonance to psychotherapy that it has lost.

 Educational Objectives:

1. To list three methods for eliciting a client’s soul history,
2. To describe three techniques for cutting through defensive, time-wasting case history.

From conference EP09-CD07-DVD