The letter ‘O’ as a concordance entry presents an unusual methodological challenge: across the depth-psychology corpus, it functions not as a unified concept but as a ubiquitous graphic and syntactic marker whose appearances fall into three distinct registers. First, in several texts — particularly the Grof volumes on LSD research — ‘O’ appears as an artifact of OCR-corrupted typesetting, where complex tables and diagrams have been scanned as undifferentiated character streams, reducing substantive psychological content to uninterpretable letter-fragments. Second, in the philological works of Beekes and Autenrieth, ‘O’ anchors Greek lexical entries (οὐλός, ὄψον, ὄργανον, ὅσιος, and others) whose etymological and semantic analysis touches on concepts relevant to depth psychology: wholeness, the sacred, the instrument, the boundary. Third, in Heidegger’s Being and Time, ‘O’ appears in index entries — ‘O. Being,’ ‘O. distance,’ ‘Objective’ — pointing toward the ontological distinction between objectivity and existential being that underlies much depth-psychological critique of positivism. The entry thus serves as a mirror for the corpus itself: its significance lies not in any single doctrine but in the tension between the symbolic density Greek etymology gives to initial-omicron terms and the extent to which depth psychology has drawn, directly or indirectly, on those semantic fields — wholeness (ὅλος), sanctioned reality (ὅσιος), and instrumental reason (ὄργανον) — in constructing its own vocabulary.
oUAo<; (epic Ion.). COMP Often as a first member… e.g. oA6-KAllP0<; (see KA�po<;)… DER oA6-Tll<;, -llTO<; [f.] ‘wholeness’ (Arist.)
This passage traces the IE root *sol(H)-uo- ‘whole’ through Greek ὅλος and its derivatives, establishing the etymological lineage of ‘wholeness’ — a concept central to holistic and depth-psychological frameworks — back to proto-Indo-European.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010thesis
opyavov [n.] ‘implement, tool, instrument, sense organ, organ’ (Hp., Ctes., Att., Arist.). IE *uerg- ‘work’
The entry for ὄργανον grounds the concept of the organ — both as sense-instrument and as psychological apparatus — in the IE root for ‘work,’ foregrounding the etymological continuity between instrumental reason and embodied perception that depth psychology consistently interrogates.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010thesis
OOlO<; [adj.] ‘sanctioned or permitted’, by the gods or by nature, ‘pleasing to the gods, just (= Lat. fas), devout, ritually pure’
The analysis of ὅσιος as divinely or naturally sanctioned — distinct from merely legal or rational permission — identifies a semantic field of sacral legitimacy that recurs in depth-psychological accounts of the numinous and the ethically permissible.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010thesis
The pervasive o-vocalism points to a reconstruction *hJer-. Traces of an e-grade have been supposed in epno… It is best to derive these forms from the root *h,er-
The reconstruction of the root *h₃er- (‘set in motion, arouse’) underlying ὄρνυμι and cognates articulates an etymological basis for concepts of drive, impulse, and arousal that map onto depth-psychological accounts of instinctual mobilization.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting
OA�O<; [m.] ‘prosperity, blessed state, wealth, happiness’ (ll.)… OA�lO<; ‘blessed, well-to-do, happy’
The semantic cluster around ὄλβος — prosperity, blessedness, happiness — provides etymological depth to depth-psychological discussions of eudaimonia, flourishing, and the psyche’s relationship to positive affect and abundance.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting
fObjective: *objektiv H. 388… O. Being: H. 64… O. distance: H. 106
The index entries under ‘O’ in Being and Time’s technical glossary mark Heidegger’s critical distinction between objectivity and ontological being, a distinction foundational to depth psychology’s rejection of purely objectivist models of the psyche.
, Being and Time, 1962supporting
oUAat [f.pl.] ‘(unground) barley corns, roasted and sprinkled between the horns of the sacrificial animal’ (Ion. since Y 441); Lat. mola salsa.
The entry for οὐλαί situates sacrificial grain-offering within a Pre-Greek ritual vocabulary, illuminating the archaic ceremonial register from which depth psychology draws when treating sacrifice as a psychic and symbolic act.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting
OnAov and derivatives in Horn. see Triimpy 1950… Greek formation with suffix -A- and o-grade… from the inherited root of epw ‘to care for, perpetrate’
The derivation of ὅπλον (weapon, implement) from the root meaning ‘to care for, perpetrate’ reveals an etymological ambivalence between care and aggression that resonates with depth-psychological analyses of the duality inherent in libidinal and aggressive drives.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting
olipoC; [m.] ‘watcher, guard(ian)’… IE *uer- ‘observe’… Can hardly be separated from opaw, and probably derives from *FoPFoc;
The etymology of οὖρος (‘watcher, guardian’) from IE *uer- ‘observe’ provides philological grounding for the archetype of the guardian or watchful presence that recurs in depth-psychological accounts of the observing ego and the protective function.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting
o\jlov was a supplementary dish, which was always eaten on top of e.g. grain or bread. This suggests the comparison with Myc. a-pi.
The analysis of ὄψον as supplementary nourishment — always secondary, always added on — offers a lexical analogue for depth-psychological concepts of auxiliary gratification and the supplementary nature of symbolic satisfaction.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting
ovXos (6Xooc, o\\vfii)i: destructive, murderous, E 461; baneful Dream, B 6, 8.
Autenrieth’s Homeric gloss on οὖλος as simultaneously ‘whole’ and ‘destructive, murderous’ — including the baneful Dream — captures the semantic ambivalence of wholeness as a concept that encompasses both integration and annihilation, a polarity central to Jungian and post-Jungian theory.
, Homeric Dictionarysupporting
0XAOC; [m.] 1. ‘(orderless) crowd, multitude’
The entry for ὄχλος as disordered crowd or multitude supplies etymological grounding for depth-psychological analyses of mass psychology, the dissolution of individual boundaries in collective states, and the distinction between community and mob.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010supporting
memories of somatic traumatization have a significant role in the psychogenesis of various emotional disorders, particularly depression and sadomasochism; this concept is as yet unrecognized and unacknowledged in present-day schools of dynamic psychotherapy
Grof’s claim that somatically registered traumatic memories — including perinatal phenomena — occupy a psychogenetic role unacknowledged by mainstream dynamic schools provides substantive depth-psychological context, though the ‘O’ designation here is an OCR artifact rather than a theoretical marker.
, Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research, 1975aside
an internal object has been built up that has the characteristics of a greedy vagina-like ‘breast’ that strips of its goodness all that the infant receives or gives, leaving only degenerate objects
Bion’s description of the pathological internal object that evacuates meaning from all projective material offers a depth-psychological counterpart to the etymological theme of destruction and stripping embedded in the ὀλο- root family.
, A Theory of Thinking, 1962aside
Properly ‘with a swollen foot’, with regular change i : ro in OlOl- and IE *h2oid-ro-, which is found in Gm., e.g. OHG eittar ‘pus’
The etymology of Oedipus as ‘swollen foot’ — traced to the IE root for inflammation and pus — undergirds the somatic dimension of the Oedipus complex and its origins in bodily wounding rather than purely triangular desire.
, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2010aside