Psychological wholeness stands as one of the most generative and contested concepts in the depth-psychology corpus. In its Jungian formulation, wholeness names the telos of individuation: the progressive integration of conscious and unconscious contents into what Jung called the Self, the master archetype that both orients and exceeds the ego. Murray Stein articulates the canonical position with precision — wholeness is ‘the master term that describes the goal of the individuation process.’ Yet the concept has never been received without friction. Hillman’s archetypal psychology mounts the most sustained challenge, arguing that the drive toward unity and integration betrays the psyche’s irreducible polycentrism; for Hillman, ‘elaboration, particularising, complication’ are preferable to integration, and the health of wholeness should not mean ‘the one dominating the many.’ Samuels identifies two distinct registers of the term — a psychological wholeness expressed through multiple relations and a theological wholeness expressed through approximation to an ideal unity — a distinction that clarifies much of the post-Jungian debate. Giegerich, characteristically, argues that striving toward wholeness in the conventional sense ‘acts out’ a psychological task rather than accomplishing it. Beyond the Jungian orbit, the concept appears in addiction literature as the primordial thirst underlying compulsion, in Buddhist-inflected psychotherapy as a ground already present rather than a goal to be achieved, and in Neumann’s ethical psychology as the transformation of negative contents within the whole personality. The term thus traverses soteriology, clinical practice, mythology, and metaphysics simultaneously.
Wholeness is the master term that describes the goal of the individuation process, and it is the expression within psychological life of the self archetype.
Stein provides the most concise canonical formulation, identifying wholeness as the telos of individuation and locating it as the psychological manifestation of the Self archetype.
, Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introduction, 1998thesis
two views of completion, a psychological wholeness where individuation shows itself in multiple relations, and a theological wholeness where individuation shows itself in degrees of approximation to an ideal or unity.
Samuels draws a crucial analytical distinction between a pluralistic psychological wholeness and a hierarchical theological wholeness, clarifying the central fault line in post-Jungian debate on the concept.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985thesis
one develops a unique personality, and therefore moves towards wholeness rather than achieving wholeness as it is impossible to integrate or become conscious of all unconscious content.
Dennett, following Jung, establishes wholeness as an asymptotic orientation rather than a terminus, correcting any static or totalizing reading of the concept.
, Individuation in Addiction Recovery: An Archetypal Astrological Perspective, 2025thesis
wholeness equates to the integration of ‘all of us, good and bad,’ thus diverging from the typical religious notions of salvation or redemption.
Peterson contrasts psychological wholeness with religious salvation, grounding the concept in the integration of shadow contents and locating it within the mythology of addiction recovery.
, The Shadow of a Figure of Light, 2024thesis
We do not need to develop ‘our’ wholeness. With one’s ‘striving towards wholeness’ in the conventional sense of this idea, a psychological, i. e., logical, task is acted out.
Giegerich mounts a rigorous critique of the conventional wholeness ideal, arguing that its pursuit in the ordinary sense displaces rather than accomplishes genuine psychological — that is, logical — work.
thesis
the health of wholeness has come to mean the one dominating the many. Polytheistic psychology obliges consciousness to circulate among a field of powers.
Miller, channelling Hillman, critiques the monotheistic wholeness model as a covert hegemony of unity over multiplicity, proposing polytheistic circulation as the alternative psychological health.
, The New Polytheism: Rebirth of the Gods and Goddesses, 1974thesis
Instead of a reconciliation of opposites taking place, and a wholeness emerging, a one-sidely ‘perfect’ man is held up to the Christian as the conscious goal of his religious life.
Sanford argues that orthodox Christianity’s exclusion of the shadow prevents genuine wholeness, which requires reconciliation of opposites rather than identification with a one-sided ideal.
, Dreams: Gods Forgotten Language, 1968supporting
Wholeness is also defined as the unity or totality of complex components. This is what we have been thirsting for — and it is possible to find it in our everyday world.
Grof frames wholeness as the underlying object of addictive craving, integrating its spiritual, etymological, and psychological dimensions within a recovery context.
, The Thirst for Wholeness: Attachment, Addiction, and the Spiritual Path, 1993supporting
Christ did not merely symbolize wholeness, but, as a psychic phenomenon, he was wholeness.
The passage cites Jung’s claim that Christ functioned not merely as a symbol but as a direct psychic enactment of wholeness, placing the Christ-image at the center of the concept’s history.
, Anima: An Anatomy of a Personified Notion, 1985supporting
there is too much said about qualities like roundness, completeness, and wholeness. It is high time that we spoke of deficiency, the invalidism of Self.
Guggenbuhl-Craig, as reported by Samuels, argues that the wholeness ideal systematically suppresses acknowledgment of irreducible incompleteness and pathology in the Self.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985supporting
Within the Christian tradition he noted a number of mandala-like motifs in the representation of Christ, indicating, he believed, the idea of psychological and spiritual wholeness.
Clarke documents Jung’s use of mandala symbolism across cultures as visual representations of psychological and spiritual wholeness, connecting Eastern and Western iconographies.
, Jung and Eastern Thought: A Dialogue with the Orient, 1994supporting
the lack of wholeness in the Western God-image prompted Jung to reimagine the higher power just as Bill Wilson did following his own spiritual trajectory.
Peterson situates Jung’s pursuit of wholeness within his critique of the Western God-image, linking it to the parallel spiritual reimagining undertaken by Wilson in the Twelve Step tradition.
, The Shadow of a Figure of Light, 2024supporting
the process of centring in the Self and the inclusion of the unconscious elements within the structure of the personality.
Neumann describes the centring of the Self and the structural assimilation of unconscious contents as the operative mechanism through which psychological wholeness is approached in the new ethic.
, Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, 1949supporting
In the context of polytheism it is virtuous not to be integrated and receptive to voices that differ and sometimes breed conflict.
Hillman argues from a polytheistic standpoint that non-integration can itself be a psychological virtue, directly contesting the normative primacy of wholeness as integration.
, A Blue Fire: The Essential James Hillman, 1989supporting
Jung’s preference for the self, says Hillman, unduly narrows a psychology that in every other respect stresses the plurality and multiplicity of the psyche, the archetypes and complexes.
Samuels reports Hillman’s charge that privileging the Self — and by extension the wholeness it promises — contradicts the pluralistic logic elsewhere operative in Jungian psychology.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985supporting
and personal wholeness, 54-56, 63-66; in relationship, 97; and Jung psyche, 49-50.
An index entry in Stein’s volume signals that personal wholeness is treated in conjunction with archetypal images, relationships, and the midlife psyche, indicating its structural role throughout the text.
, Transformation Emergence of the Self (Volume 7) (Carolyn, 1998aside
less encouraging for a theology of evolutional wholeness. It will more likely reflect accurately the illusions and entanglements of the soul.
Hillman concedes that polytheistic psychology sacrifices an evolutionary theology of wholeness in favour of a more accurate — if less consoling — reflection of the soul’s actual multiplicity.
, Archetypal Psychology, 1983aside