The term ‘constitution’ appears in the depth-psychology corpus across several distinct registers, each illuminating a different dimension of the concept’s psychological and philosophical resonance. In Stoic philosophy, as recovered by Inwood and Long–Sedley, constitutio (sustasis) names the fundamental self-preserving organization of the animal — the hegemonikon’s relation to the body — providing the structural ground for oikeiōsis, the self-appropriation that anchors Stoic ethics. This physiological-psychological meaning stands in productive tension with the juridico-political sense explored in passages derived from Hannah Arendt’s circle, where the American Constitution becomes the site of contested sovereignty, emergency powers, and the suppressed return of the executive. Tarnas situates the American Constitution’s quasi-sacred authority within Saturn-Pluto archetypal dynamics, reading its ‘virtually unassailable authority’ as a structure invested with the ‘legitimacy of omniscient wisdom.’ Von Franz, by contrast, discovers in the equation Archetype = Constitution a Jungian insight: that democratic constitutions are projections of an archetypal image onto the political order. Freud deploys ‘sexual constitution’ as one pole in the endogenous-exogenous axis of neurotic causation. Ricoeur treats the search for a ‘good constitution’ as a paradigm case of political judgment in contingent situations. Together these passages reveal constitution as a concept hovering between biological disposition, psychological structure, and institutional form.
The constitution itself is also a disposition. For Seneca gives a definition of constitutio which is almost certainly derived from Chrysippus: it is the hēgemonikon in a certain relation to the body.
Inwood establishes the Stoic technical meaning of ‘constitution’ as the governing soul-part (hēgemonikon) in its relational disposition to the body, making it the structural ground of self-preservation and primary impulse.
, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, 1985thesis
Each period of life has its own constitution, one for the baby, and another for the boy, and another for the old man. They are all related appropriately to that constitution in which they exist.
Long and Sedley demonstrate that Stoic constitution is developmentally indexed — each life-phase has its own constitutive orientation — grounding the doctrine of oikeiōsis in an evolving but continuous self-relation.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987thesis
a book by Hans Marti entitled Urbild und Verfassung, which could be translated as ‘Archetype and Constitution.’ Marti shows that since man originally conceived of the constitution of a democratic state he is mainly concerned with the Swiss Constitution a secret switch has taken place fro
Von Franz introduces Marti’s argument that the political constitution is a projection of an archetypal image, directly linking Jungian Urbild theory to the juridical phenomenon of constitutional founding.
, Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology, 1980thesis
what is to be preserved is described by the Stoics’ word sustasis, our ‘constitution’. Thirdly, will is said to depend only on nature, unlike proairesis. Fourthly, the Stoic term sunektikē, sunekhein is used when it is said that will holds the substance together.
Sorabji identifies ‘constitution’ (sustasis) as the object of the will’s preservative function in Maximus the Confessor’s Stoically-derived definition, showing the term’s transmission into Christian philosophical psychology.
, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation, 2000thesis
the Constitution’s virtually unassailable authority, which is in certain respects suggestive of a structure of religious law that has been invested with the legitimacy of omniscient wisdom and unquestionable divine authority.
Tarnas reads the American Constitution’s sacred aura as an expression of the Saturn-Pluto archetypal complex, interpreting its quasi-divine authority as an instance of collective psychological projection.
, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, 2006thesis
Are the neuroses exogenous or endogenous diseases — the inevitable result of a certain type of constitution or the product of certain injurious (traumatic) events in the person’s life?
Freud deploys ‘constitution’ as the endogenous pole of neurotic causation, arguing that sexual constitution and traumatic experience form a complementary series rather than mutually exclusive explanations.
, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, 1917thesis
human constitution and thereby ‘appropriation’ evolve with the development of rationality, so that finally the perfection of reason becomes the one thing ‘appropriate’ and natural to the mature man.
Long and Sedley show that ‘human constitution’ is not static but develops teleologically toward rational perfection, making it the dynamic basis for the Stoic transition from natural impulse to moral virtue.
, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 1987supporting
its own constitution and one is always oriented to the one which one has at any single time. But the relational disposition, which is what the orientation is, remains the same because the structure of the relationship is constant.
Inwood argues that despite changes in its content, the structure of the self’s relation to its own constitution remains formally constant, ensuring analogical continuity of personal identity across life’s transformations.
, Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism, 1985supporting
the search for the ‘good’ constitution, just when the accidents of history create a constitutional void… they can claim to offer to their people a ‘good’ constitution. This choice is a new example of political judgment in situation.
Ricoeur treats the founding of a ‘good constitution’ as an exemplary act of practical political judgment (phronesis) exercised in historically contingent circumstances without transparent rational foundations.
, Oneself as Another, 1992supporting
Nixon and Watergate represented a criminal conspiracy against the Constitution, or at least some of its laws, even if it was not as serious as some might have thought, and certainly not a potential of this constitutional regime itself.
This passage, drawing on Arendt, distinguishes a criminal assault on constitutional law from a structural vulnerability of the constitutional regime, illustrating the tension between constitutional norms and executive power.
, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
instead of fashioning a constituent assembly with the plenitude of powers, unchecked or checked only by a plebiscite, they constructed a many-stage, dualistic constitution-making effort where the drafting assembly was supposed to recommend only.
The passage reconstructs Arendt’s account of the American constitutional founding as a deliberately limited, dualistic process designed to resist the concentration of sovereign constituent power.
, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
during the Reconstruction, in the period of its own ‘constitutional dictatorship’ when the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution were rammed through in an extra-constitutional manner.
The passage illustrates that constitutional amendments can be achieved through extra-constitutional means, complicating the boundary between legitimate constitutional change and the exercise of sovereign emergency power.
, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
Their common danger, and the influence of their ancient constitution, greatly tended to promote harmony among them.
Plato treats an ancient constitution as a cohesive force that channels shared danger into civic harmony, linking constitutional order to the psychological conditions of collective solidarity.
, Laws, -348supporting
Even if Jefferson did not have in mind inherent, constitutional, or extraconstitutional powers, when pioneering a particular emergency regime based on Locke’s prerogative, he certainly benefited from his plebescitary democratic legitimacy.
The passage maps the boundary between constitutional and extra-constitutional emergency power in the early American republic, showing how plebiscitary legitimacy can supplement or override formal constitutional authority.
, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981supporting
On constitutional politics, her judgment i
The passage notes in passing that Arendt’s judgments of non-evil constitutional politics are existential and aesthetic rather than moral, framing constitutional order within her broader existential political theory.
, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung, 1981aside