James Hollis, Ph. D., was born in Springfield, Illinois, and graduated from Manchester University in 1962 and Drew University in 1967. He taught Humanities 26 years in various colleges and universities before retraining as a Jungian analyst at the Jung Institute of Zurich, Switzerland (1977-82). He is presently a licensed Jungian analyst in private practice in Washington, D.C. He served as Executive Director of the Jung Educational Center in Houston, Texas for many years and now was Executive Director of the Jung Society of Washington until 2019, and now serves on the JSW Board of Directors. He is a retired Senior Training Analyst for the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, was first Director of Training of the Philadelphia Jung Institute, and is Vice-President Emeritus of the Philemon Foundation. Additionally, he is a Professor of Jungian Studies for Saybrook University of San Francisco/Houston.

He lives with his wife Jill, an artist and retired therapist, in Washington, DC. Together they have three living children and eight grandchildren.

He is the author of nineteen books, the latest being The Broken Mirror: Refracted Visions of Ourselves. Other books include: Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path, On This Journey We Call Our Life: Living the Questions, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding Our Darker Selves, Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey and recently released Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times. The latest book is, Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times. The books have been translated into Swedish, Russian, German, Spanish, French, Hungarian, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian, Korean, Finnish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Farsi, Japanese, Greek, Chinese, Serbian, and Czech.