The term ‘element’ traverses the depth-psychology corpus along two distinct but intersecting axes. The first is cosmological-metaphysical: tracing back through Plato’s Timaeus, ‘element’ designates the irreducible primary bodies — fire, air, water, earth — which Plato himself refuses to treat as ultimate, preferring to derive them from prior triangular structures. This Platonic move, denying classical elements the status of true archai, resonates through alchemical traditions surveyed by Jung and von Franz, where the four elements appear as both physical constituents and psychic projections. The second axis is psychological-typological: Arroyo’s astrological psychology deploys the four elements as energy categories mapping personality and temperament, while Winnicott introduces ‘element’ in a more abstract, clinical sense — the distilled ‘male’ and ‘female’ elements as pure relational stances underlying character. In the I Ching material, ‘element’ functions structurally as the yin or yang line within a hexagram, the minimal unit of symbolic meaning. Across these contexts, what unites the term is its role as the smallest meaningful constituent of a larger system — whether cosmological, psychological, or divinatory — whose interrelations generate the complexity of experience. The tensions are significant: whether elements are ultimate or derivative, literal or symbolic, material or psychic, remains contested across the traditions assembled here.