The concept of self-contained wholeness occupies a foundational position in depth psychology’s architecture of the self, yet it is treated with strikingly divergent emphases across the corpus. In the Jungian and post-Jungian tradition, wholeness functions simultaneously as teleological goal and as structural description: the Self is posited as both center and circumference of psychic life, a totality that precedes, exceeds, and ultimately reclaims the ego. Neumann traces this configuration back to the uroboros, the primordial symbol of a psyche not yet differentiated into subject and object, a pleroma of self-enclosing completeness. Plotinus provides the philosophical substrate, articulating a realm of Being that is self-sufficient, unconditioned by any exterior, and in which cause and essence are identical. Aurobindo approaches the theme from an integral perspective, identifying self-contained wholeness with the supramental Sachchidananda — an infinite that holds its own powers without external support. Rudhyar recasts it in holistic-astrological terms, placing the self at the center of gravity of a whole-nature that must not be unbalanced by any single part. Critically, not all voices are celebratory: Samuels documents Guggenbuhl-Craig’s challenge that Classical Jungian discourse over-privileges roundness and completeness, suppressing the equally authentic dimension of deficiency and incompleteness. The tension between wholeness as achieved integration and wholeness as dangerous inflation remains the animating intellectual problem of the entire field.
It had no need of eyes, for there was nothing outside it to be seen; nor of ears, for there was nothing outside it to be heard. There was no surrounding air to be breathed
Neumann’s citation of the primordial uroboric condition describes self-contained wholeness as the original state of the psyche — a totality requiring nothing external to complete itself.
, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019thesis
that which exists eternally, not divided, subject to no change of state, neither coming into being nor falling from it, set in no region or place or support, emerging from nowhere, entering into nothing
Plotinus articulates the metaphysical archetype of self-contained wholeness as eternal, undivided Being that subsists without any external condition, ground, or support.
, The Six Enneads, 270thesis
there can be no subjection whatever in That to which reality owes its freedom, That in whose nature the conferring of freedom must clearly be vested, preeminently to be known as the liberator
Plotinus argues that the First Principle is sovereign over itself precisely because it neither acts upon nor is acted upon by anything exterior, making self-mastery identical with self-containment.
, The Six Enneads, 270thesis
the Activity is the very reality. To suppose a reality without activity would be to make the Principle of all principles deficient; the supremely complete becomes incomplete.
Plotinus identifies the self-contained whole as a unity in which Being and Act are indistinguishable, such that any external supplementation would signal deficiency rather than completeness.
, The Six Enneads, 270thesis
the self being both the centre and the circumference of the psychic life. The circular motion implies a sense of both a marking off and of a process of integration which are essential to the process of individuation
Clarke distills Jung’s core formulation: the Self constitutes self-contained wholeness by functioning simultaneously as the organising center and the enclosing boundary of psychic life.
, Jung and Eastern Thought: A Dialogue with the Orient, 1994thesis
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.
Samuels, reporting Guggenbuhl-Craig, mounts the most direct critique within the corpus: Classical analytical psychology’s idealisation of self-contained wholeness systematically excludes the reality of psychic incompleteness.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985thesis
if that Good has Being and is within the realm of Being, then it is present, self-contained, in everything: we, therefore, need not look outside of Being; we are in it
Plotinus establishes that the Good is self-contained within Being itself, making any search for wholeness outside of what already encompasses us philosophically incoherent.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
retaining a constant position or state of equilibrium at the ‘center of gravity’ of this whole-nature and destiny. It means not being thrown out of equilibrium by (i.e., involved into) the intensification of any one functional part
Rudhyar translates self-contained wholeness into a practical psychological posture: the capacity to remain centred within one’s whole-nature without being captured by any single functional excess.
, The Astrology of Personality: A Re-formulation of Astrological Concepts and Ideals in Terms of Contemporary Psychology and Philosophy, 1936supporting
if that Good has Being and is within the realm of Being, then it is present, self-contained, in everything
Plotinus’s formulation positions self-containment not as isolation but as immanent sufficiency — wholeness that is already present within the structure of Being rather than achieved from without.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
The whole is creative; wherever parts conspire to form a whole, there something arises which is more than the parts.
Rudhyar, drawing on Smuts’s holism, grounds self-contained wholeness in an emergent ontology: the whole exceeds its parts and thereby constitutes a qualitatively new and self-sufficient level of reality.
, The Astrology of Personality: A Re-formulation of Astrological Concepts and Ideals in Terms of Contemporary Psychology and Philosophy, 1936supporting
both are combined and assimilated in a unique way. Whereas the fragmentary ego finds itself a mere atom
Neumann contrasts the fragmentary ego with the self achieved in the second half of life, positioning self-contained wholeness as a hard-won developmental accomplishment rather than an originary given.
, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019supporting
From the self we derive ‘the need for fusion and wholeness — with the associated phantasies of re-entry into the mother’s breast or belly… or a re-fusing with Mother, Nature or Universe’
Samuels documents the Developmental School’s reading in which the self’s association with wholeness carries an inherent regressive pull toward undifferentiated merger — complicating any straightforward idealisation of the concept.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985supporting
The Infinite of Being must also be an Infinite of Power; containing in itself an eternal repose and quiescence, it must also be capable of an eternal action and creation: but this too must be an action in itself, a creation out of its own self eternal and infinite
Aurobindo redefines self-contained wholeness dynamically: the Infinite is not a static plenum but contains within itself both repose and infinite creative power without requiring anything external.
, The Life Divine, 1939supporting
things of determined condition I mean such as contain, inbound with their essence, the reason of their being as they are… the reason for the production of each organ is inherent in that particular being
Plotinus extends self-contained wholeness from the First Principle to individual beings whose essence and reason-for-being are internally unified, each carrying within itself the ground of its own existence.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
a spontaneous and luminous oneness and wholeness in all the movements of the consciousness and all the action of the life. There could be no strife of the members
Aurobindo describes the gnostic condition as one in which self-contained wholeness manifests practically as the harmonious integration of all psychological and vital members without external constraint.
, The Life Divine, 1939supporting
before our universe there exists, not expressed in the outer, the Intellectual-Principle of all the All, its source and archetype
Plotinus locates the archetype of wholeness in an Intellectual-Principle that pre-exists the universe and contains within itself the coordinated unity of all particular reason-principles.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
Three is the number for egohood; four is the number for wholeness, the Self. But since individuation is never
Edinger distinguishes process (trinity) from goal (quaternity), positioning self-contained wholeness symbolically as a four-fold completeness that individuation approaches but never conclusively reaches.
, Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche, 1972supporting
the process ends with the circle, rather than the human reconnection in life… they include stages beyond that attainment of wholeness shown by the circle
Spiegelman notes that certain Zen ox-herding sequences terminate in the circle as symbol of self-contained wholeness, while Kaku-an’s superior version moves beyond the circle into renewed human engagement.
, Buddhism and Jungian Psychology, 1985supporting
The Authentic is contained in nothing, since nothing existed before it; of necessity anything coming after it must, as a first condition of existence, be contained by this All
Plotinus characterises the Authentic All as radically self-contained — the only entity that is not held within anything else, while everything subsequent is constitutively held within it.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
In this consciousness the knower, knowledge and the known are not different entities, but fundamentally one.
Aurobindo identifies the supramental condition with a self-contained epistemological wholeness in which the triadic structure of knowing collapses into undivided unity.
, The Life Divine, 1939supporting
a wholeness formerly contained in the idea of the analogy between microcosm and macrocosm but apparently already lacking in Kepler and lost in the world view of classical natural science
Pauli traces the historical disappearance of self-contained wholeness from the Western scientific worldview, identifying its last symbolic home in the microcosm-macrocosm correspondence before modern fragmentation.
, Writings on Physics and Philosophy, 1994aside
the one thing has become two, making itself into a duality at the moment of intellection, or, to be more exact, being dual by the fact of intellection and single by the fact that its intellectual object is itself
Plotinus explores the paradox at the limit of self-contained wholeness: intellection necessarily introduces duality even in the act of self-knowledge, complicating any simple unity.
, The Six Enneads, 270aside
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
Samuels presents Hillman’s polytheistic critique as a challenge to the monolithic self-contained wholeness of the Jungian Self, arguing that psychological multiplicity resists reduction to a single integrative center.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985aside