Significance occupies a remarkably plural position within the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as an existential category, a religious-psychological motivation, an aesthetic criterion, and a technical marker within semiological theory. Pargament constructs it as the primary telos of human coping: people are volitional beings who organize their entire spiritual and psychological lives around objects of significance, conserving, reconstructing, and—under extreme pressure—transforming what they hold most dear. For Pargament, religion defines itself precisely as the sacred’s intersection with this search. Rudhyar, reading through an astrological-depth lens, situates significance as an emergent property arising from the individual’s interpretive encounter with collective substance: significance is ontologically ubiquitous but perceptually contingent, and its absence indexes not the world’s poverty but the perceiver’s limitation. Benveniste, approaching from structural linguistics, introduces signifiance as the general condition of meaningfulness inhering in language’s two-leveled functioning—a technical counterpart to the psychological notion. Chambless invokes the clinical distinction between statistical and clinical significance, insisting that therapeutic value requires both. Across these voices a persistent tension emerges: is significance discovered in the world, constituted by the organism, or conferred through symbolic and religious practice? That tension—between immanent teleology and projected meaning, between measurable effect and lived mattering—defines the term’s productive instability throughout the library.
people seek significance. Much of human behavior is intentional. We are almost constantly deciding how to spend our time and energy.
Pargament establishes ‘seeking significance’ as the foundational axiom of his entire theory of religious coping, positioning it as the primary driver of intentional human behavior.
, The psychology of religion and coping theory, research,, 2001thesis
In esthetics the only evil is—lack of significance; but it does not reside in the thing or the situation. For all things and all situations, being expressions of the moment of their manifestation, are inherently significant.
Rudhyar argues that significance is ontologically immanent in all phenomena; its apparent absence is an epistemological failure of perception, not an objective deficiency in the world.
significance is born out of a combination of motions. It is as the individual interprets the collective substance of all functions and all activities that significance arises.
Rudhyar locates significance at the intersection of individual interpretation and collective energetic substance, making it a dynamic emergent rather than a fixed attribute.
In reconstructive coping, the individual tries to conserve the ends of significance through a change of the means to achieve it rather than a change of significance itself.
Pargament distinguishes the conservation of significance-as-ends from reconstruction of the paths toward it, positioning religion as operative in both protective strategies.
, The psychology of religion and coping theory, research,, 2001thesis
transformation remains a necessary part of coping, for at times the only way to maximize significance may be to transform it.
Pargament presents the transformation of significance—particularly through religious encounter in extremis—as coping’s most radical and necessary mechanism.
, The psychology of religion and coping theory, research,, 2001thesis
there is no single generic object of significance. It may be more accurate to say that the significance people seek is made up of a system of objects, an organization of values.
Pargament resists reductive accounts by arguing that significance comprises a hierarchically organized system of valued objects varying across individuals and developmental stages.
, The psychology of religion and coping theory, research,, 2001supporting
The Sacred and the Search for Significance… Any of the very human experiences of the world… can also be ‘sacralized,’—that is, invested with a spiritual, even supernatural, aura.
Pargament argues that the sacred functions as a uniquely powerful object of significance because virtually any experience can be invested with divine attributes, amplifying its motivational force.
, The psychology of religion and coping theory, research,, 2001supporting
it is not enough for treatment effects to be statistically significant; they also need to be large enough to be clinically meaningful.
Chambless draws a rigorous distinction between statistical and clinical significance, insisting that therapeutic value must exceed mere probabilistic departure from chance.
, Defining Empirically Supported Therapies, 1998supporting
Signification is organised in a language at two levels… signifiance… refers to the general condition of being meaningful.
Benveniste introduces signifiance as a technical term for the structural precondition of meaningfulness in language, organized across two distinct operational levels.
, Last Lectures: Collège de France 1968 and 1969, 2012supporting
signifiance… Its definition is given as ‘Significance, meaning; interpretation; augury, foreshadowing. Also: a sign or expression.’
Benveniste’s translators excavate the historical semantics of signifiance, revealing its archaic English cognate carried connotations of meaning, interpretation, and augury that resonate with depth-psychological usage.
, Last Lectures: Collège de France 1968 and 1969, 2012supporting
The Sacred and the Search for Significance… Bridging the Substantive and Functional Traditions: The Sacred and the Search for Significance as the Mark of Religion.
Pargament’s table of contents reveals ‘significance’ as the structural spine of his entire theoretical framework, bridging substantive and functional definitions of religion.
, The psychology of religion and coping theory, research,, 2001supporting
for them there is no such thing as a meaningless accident… the primitive will always try to fathom the meaning of. So it would be possible for us, by slipping back a bit into our primitive side, to revive this way of seeing.
Von Franz contextualizes synchronistic perception as a recovery of the archaic capacity to invest every event with significance, contrasting it with the modern scientist’s reduction of meaning to accident.
, Psyche and Matter, 2014supporting
Significant, CHI: leads to the experience of… Spring significant.
The I Ching concordance treats ‘significant’ as a technical divinatory term (CHI) indicating auspicious outcome, illustrating significance as a category embedded within classical Chinese mantic practice.
, I Ching: The Classic Chinese Oracle of Change, 1994aside
The Conservation of Significance… The Transformation of Significance… Radical Change: Religion and the Re-Creation of Significance.
Pargament’s chapter structure maps significance onto a dynamic coping continuum running from conservation through reconstruction to radical transformation and re-creation.
, The psychology of religion and coping theory, research,, 2001aside