Within the depth-psychology corpus, well-being resists reduction to a single register. It appears simultaneously as an empirical outcome variable, a philosophical problem, a spiritual endowment, and — most provocatively in Jung — something that must be subordinated to the demands of the unlived life. The empirical literature (White, Anderson, Keltner, Bettmann) treats well-being as a measurable state associated with nature contact, awe, and physiological regulation, establishing dose-response thresholds and mediating mechanisms. Here well-being is largely hedonic and eudaimonic: life satisfaction, reduced stress, flourishing. A second register, represented by Siegel, locates the ground of well-being in relational connection and the dissolution of a rigidly bounded self — consonant with depth psychology’s broader suspicion of isolated ego-consciousness. A third register, drawn from spiritual sources (the Philokalia, Plotinus, Laudet), roots well-being in participation in a transcendent order, naming it as contingent on grace, meaning, or alignment with the Good. Most arresting is Jung’s Red Book formulation, where ‘the spirit of the depths’ explicitly overrules personal well-being in favor of the fullness of life — a challenge to any merely comfort-seeking psychology. The tension between well-being as a clinical target and well-being as a by-product of living one’s unlived depths constitutes the animating problem of this entry.
The spirit of the depths demands: ‘The life that you could still live, you should live. Well-being decides, not your well-being, no’
Jung’s Red Book subordinates personal well-being to the imperative of living fully, framing individual comfort as insufficient grounds for the choices demanded by the psyche’s depths.
, The Red Book: Liber Novus, 2009thesis
our sense of connection to something larger than a small, separate, isolated ‘self’ may be at the heart of well-being.
Siegel argues that well-being is fundamentally relational and transpersonal, grounded in the dissolution of the isolated self through compassion, gratitude, and awe.
, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2020thesis
awe experienced by military veterans and youth from underserved communities while whitewater rafting, above and beyond all the other positive emotions measured, predicted changes in well-being and stress-related symptoms one week later.
Anderson et al. establish awe as the specific emotional mechanism through which nature experience produces measurable improvements in well-being and stress symptomatology.
, Awe in Nature Heals: Evidence From Military Veterans, At-Risk Youth, and College Students, 2018thesis
the likelihood of reporting good health or high well-being became significantly greater with contact ≥120mins
White et al. identify a dose-response threshold of 120 minutes of weekly nature contact below which significant well-being benefits do not emerge, establishing nature exposure as a public-health-relevant determinant of well-being.
, Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing, 2019thesis
120 mins contact with nature per week may reflect a kind of ‘threshold’, below which there is insufficient contact to produce significant benefits to health and well-being, but above which such benefits become manifest.
This passage refines the dose-response model, proposing a biologically and psychologically meaningful threshold for nature-derived well-being benefits and noting diminishing marginal returns beyond 200–300 minutes.
, Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing, 2019supporting
if a man cannot receive the active presence of God on which his well-being depends, and so fails to attain the divine life that is beyond age, time and place, where will he be?
The Philokalia positions well-being as entirely contingent on participation in the divine presence, making it a theological rather than a psychological or hedonic category.
, The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995thesis
experiences of awe promote well-being… reading an awe-inspiring passage was shown to increase momentary life satisfaction… awe has also been associated with more adaptive physiological profiles as indicated by lower markers of inflammation
This passage reviews converging evidence linking awe to well-being across cognitive, hedonic, and physiological dimensions, positioning awe as the operative mediator between nature experience and health outcomes.
, Awe in Nature Heals: Evidence From Military Veterans, At-Risk Youth, and College Students, 2018supporting
The physiological profile of awe documented thus far — elevated vagal tone, reduced sympathetic activation, increased oxytocin, and reduced inflammation — is associated with enhanced mental health… increased optimism, sense of connection, and well-being
Keltner maps the neurophysiological pathways through which awe produces well-being, integrating vagal tone, oxytocin, and inflammatory markers into a coherent mind-body account.
, Awe: A Pathway to Health, 2023supporting
spiritual well-being (SWB — a multidimensional construct that incorporates both existential well-being or life meaning, and spiritual beliefs) and negative affect among persons in stressful situations
Benda situates spiritual well-being as a distinct, multidimensional construct encompassing existential meaning and religious belief, demonstrating its protective function against negative affect and substance abuse.
, Spirituality and Religiousness and Alcohol/Other Drug Problems: Treatment and Recovery Perspectives, 2006supporting
The ‘will to meaning’ — constructing meaning from life’s events — is an essential human characteristic, a critical element of psychological well-being
Laudet, drawing on Frankl and Ryff, identifies meaning-making as a core constituent of psychological well-being, linking it to recovery from addiction and the capacity to cope with adversity.
awe mediates the effect of nature experience on well-being in people’s everyday lives… Well-being was measured at two levels of temporal resolution: a brief life satisfaction measure was administered daily, and longitudinal well-being was assessed using more stable measures
Anderson et al. extend the awe-well-being relationship from extraordinary to everyday nature encounters, demonstrating its operation at both momentary and longitudinal temporal scales.
, Awe in Nature Heals: Evidence From Military Veterans, At-Risk Youth, and College Students, 2018supporting
narrated redemption was positively related to life satisfaction, self-esteem, and eudaemonic well-being and negatively related to depression.
Dunlop establishes that the narrative construal of personal experience in redemptive terms predicts eudaimonic well-being independently of personality traits, linking story-making to psychological flourishing.
, Sobering Stories: Narratives of Self-Redemption Predict Behavioral Change and Improved Health Among Recovering Alcoholics, 2013supporting
if Pleasure be the Term, if here be the good of life, it is impossible to deny the good of life to any order of living things; if the Term be inner-peace, equally impossible
Plotinus interrogates the ultimate criterion of well-being — whether pleasure, inner peace, or conformity to nature’s purpose — extending the philosophical question to all living beings.
, The Six Enneads, 270supporting
contact with natural environments promotes more robust health outcomes, including reductions of stress, reduced inflammation, increased parasympathetic activity, and improved immune functioning
Keltner consolidates evidence that nature contact improves well-being through measurable psychophysiological pathways, with awe as one proposed mediating mechanism.
, Awe: A Pathway to Health, 2023supporting
awe mediates the effect of nature experience on well-being. These findings suggest that awe may be one active ingredient in the remedy that is time spent outdoors.
Anderson et al. conclude that awe functions as the active psychological ingredient by which outdoor nature experience translates into well-being gains.
, Awe in Nature Heals: Evidence From Military Veterans, At-Risk Youth, and College Students, 2018supporting
spiritual well-being not only have direct significant inverse relations with alcohol and drug abuse, these two constructs also have significant indirect negative relations with substance abuse as well
Structural equation data show that spiritual well-being operates both directly and indirectly to reduce substance abuse, mediating through attachment and self-development.
, Spirituality and Religiousness and Alcohol/Other Drug Problems: Treatment and Recovery Perspectives, 2006supporting
mental health as ‘a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community’
Bettmann incorporates the WHO definition of mental health as a form of well-being oriented toward functional capacity and social contribution, framing it as the target outcome for nature-exposure interventions.
, A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on the Effect of Nature Exposure Dose on Adults with Mental Illness, 2025supporting
Subjective well-being (henceforth: well-being) was assessed using the ‘Life Satisfaction’ measure, one of the UK’s national well-being measures: ‘Overall how satisfied are you with life nowadays?’
White operationalizes subjective well-being through the national Life Satisfaction measure, anchoring the empirical construct in self-reported contentment with life as a whole.
, Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing, 2019supporting
we found a significant indirect effect of nature experience on daily life satisfaction through awe
Multilevel mediation analysis confirms that awe statistically accounts for the pathway from nature experience to daily life satisfaction, a component of well-being.
, Awe in Nature Heals: Evidence From Military Veterans, At-Risk Youth, and College Students, 2018supporting
Sorrow and sadness depend on connexion; anger, resentment and self-righteousness on alienation. Sorrow leads to insight; anger to blindness.
McGilchrist implicitly addresses the conditions of well-being by contrasting the connective, right-hemisphere emotions that sustain insight with the alienating, left-hemisphere affects that undermine it.
, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021aside
Brief experiences of awe, then, are likely to bring about a host of mind-body benefits through a transformed self.
Keltner identifies self-transcendence — the vanishing of self-focused cognition under awe — as the psychological mechanism linking awe to mind-body well-being benefits.
, Awe: A Pathway to Health, 2023aside