Psychological Oneness: A Typology

Abstract

Oneness is a sense of profound unity with some other entity, typically a large, abstract entity such as nature or all of existence. This article offers a typology of oneness based on a review of oneness concepts in the psychology literature. The typology distinguishes between oneness experiences and oneness intuitions or beliefs, the latter being propositions about how self and other are connected. It also distinguishes between three perceived ontologies: expansion (including other in self), interdependence (self and other in symbiosis), and essential (self and other sharing some fundamental property). Confirmatory factor analysis (n = 102) supported the typology’s dimensions within the scope of nature, using novel sets of items based on restructuring extant oneness measures. Implications of the typology for understanding oneness with nature and its role in addressing environmental crises are discussed, including how these may interact with cultural context.