Two Views of Wholeness
According to Rosemarie Parse, there are two distinct paradigms of wholeness in human experience: totality and simultaneity. These reflect fundamentally different worldviews about what it means to be human, and they shape how we understand wholeness.
Totality: Whole as Sum of Parts.
The totality paradigm is grounded in modernist, biomedical, and reductionist thinking. From the perspective of the totality paradigm, the person is viewed as a sum of parts (biological, psychological, social, spiritual) existing in a linear cause-and-effect world influenced by the environment and time and developing through stages, accumulation, and change over time. The self is seen as formed and developing through adaptation to external influences. Wholeness is achieved by optimizing the parts (e.g., fixing what is broken or deficient). Health is often viewed as the absence of disease or dysfunction. Time is chronological and development follows a sequence. For example, a child becomes whole as each developmental milestone is achieved and each system matures properly.
Simultaneity: Whole as Unitary Field in Mutual Process.
On the other hand, simultaneity views a person as an indivisible unity of mind-body-spirit in mutual process with the universe, not separate from it, participating in co-creating reality through choice, meaning, and presence and unfolding nonlinearly, through experiences of becoming. The self is not a finished thing or set of parts, but a pattern of meaning continuously expressed. Wholeness is not something we achieve, but something we are, inherently. Change occurs through rhythmic patterns, shifts in awareness, and transcendence with the moment. Time is lived and experiential, not just measured. For example, a person is always whole, even in illness or suffering because they are an unfolding expression of unique becoming, inseparable from the whole field of life.
In development, these two paradigms offer very different maps. Totality helps us understand structure, sequence, and intervention. It offers clarity in diagnostics and treatment of specific issues. Simultaneity reminds us of the lived truth, that development is not just about what happens to us, but how we engage meaningfully in the unfolding dance of life. Together, they can be held as complementary lenses, the structural and the poetic, the measurable and the mysterious.
A Synthesis of Two Views.
While simuntaneity and totality are often presented as distinct paradigms, they can be synthesized into a unified, dialectical lens that honors both formlessness and form, being and becoming.
Simultaneity gives us wholeness as presence that is timeless, indivisible, and always already complete. Totality gives us wholeness as organization that is emergent, sequential, and unfolding through complexity. Wholeness is both a ground of being and an emergent pattern of becoming. We are not separate from the whole, and we are also patterning the whole in unique ways through a body in time.
Totality sees time as chronos; linear, sequential, and cause-and-effect. Simultaneity sees time as kairos; the fullness of the present moment, timeless unfolding. Human experiencing is nested time, the present moment (kairos) holds layers of structured memory (chronos). Each moment is both new and informed by everything that came before.
Totality emphasizes structure through milestones, stages, and systems. Simultaneity emphasizes resonance through meaning, presence, and relational flow. Development is a rhythmic choreography where structure forms as a dance between inner intention and outer context. Like music, it’s patterned but also alive and improvisational.
Totality says that you are your roles, functions, systems, and stories. Simultaneity says you are not your stories, you are the field in which they arise. Identity is both a necessary fiction and a sacred lens. The self is a transparent pattern, through which the field expresses its uniqueness. The constructed self becomes a vehicle for presence, rather than a barrier to it.
Totality aims to fix dysfunction and restore balance. Simultaneity invites meaning, presence, and transformation. Healing is the emergence of coherence, when form and flow meet in a rhythm that resonates with one’s deeper truth. We don’t return to a prior “normal”, but unfold into a new integration of pattern and presence.
A Metaphor.
Metaphorically, the riverbanks represent totality (structure, limits, containment) and the flowing water represents simultaneity (movement, spontaneity, the field of becoming). Together, they form a living river. Without structure, the flow would be chaotic; without flow, structure is lifeless. Human experiencing arises at the meeting point of form and flux. This synthesis supports a model of human experiencing that is non-reductive, embodied, emergent, and transcendent. One that can include science, poetry, spirituality, and lived human experience without fragmentation.
Together, we can collaborate on your journey to wholeness!
