Shadow (psychology)

In Jungian psychology, the shadow or "shadow aspect" is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. It is one of the three most recognizable archetypes, the others being the anima and animus and the persona. "Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."Jung, C.G. (1938). "Psychology and Religion." In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.131 It may be (in part) one's link to more primitive animal instincts,Jung, C.G. (1952). "Answer to Job." In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.12 which are superseded during early childhood by the conscious mind.
According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to projection: turning a personal inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. Jung writes that if these projections are unrecognized "The projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand and can realize its object--if it has one--or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power." Jung, C.G. (1951). "Phenomenology of the Self" In The Portable Jung. P.147 These projections insulate and cripple individuals by forming an ever thicker fog of illusion between the ego and the real world.
From one perspective, 'the shadow...is roughly equivalent to the whole of the Freudian unconscious';Anthony Stevens, On Jung (London 1990) p. 43 and Jung himself considered that 'the result of the Freudian method of elucidation is a minute elaboration of man's shadow-side unexampled in any previous age'.C. G. Jung, The Practice of Psychotherapy (London 1993) p. 63
Jung also believed that "in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness—or perhaps because of this—the shadow is the seat of creativity.";Kaufman, C. Three-Dimensional Villains: Finding Your Character's Shadow so that for some, it may be, 'the dark side of his being, his sinister shadow...represents the true spirit of life as against the arid scholar'.C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (London 1983) p. 262
==Appearance==
The shadow may appear in dreams and visions in various forms, and typically 'appears as a person of the same sex as that of the dreamer'.M-L von Franz, "The Process of Individuation" in C. G. Jung, Man and his Symbols (London 1978) p. 175 It is possible that it might appear with dark features to a person of any race, since it represents a distant, primitive and indiscriminate aspect of the mind. The shadow's appearance and role depend greatly on the living experience of the individual, because much of the shadow develops in the individual's mind rather than simply being inherited in the collective unconscious. Nevertheless, some Jungians maintain that 'The shadow contains, besides the personal shadow, the shadow of society ... fed by the neglected and repressed collective values'.Michael Fordham, Jungian Psychotherapy (Avon 1978) p. 5
Interactions with the shadow in dreams may shed light on one's state of mind. A conversation with the shadow may indicate that one is concerned with conflicting desires or intentions. Identification with a despised figure may mean that one has an unacknowledged difference from the character; a difference which could point to a rejection of the illuminating qualities of ego-consciousness. These examples refer to just two of many possible roles that the shadow may adopt, and are not general guides to interpretation. Also, it can be difficult to identify characters in dreams — "all the contents are blurred and merge into one another ... 'contamination' of unconscious contents"von Franz, "Process" p. 183 — so that a character who seems at first to be a shadow might represent some other complex instead.
Jung also made the suggestion of there being more than one layer making up the shadow. The top layers contain the meaningful flow and manifestations of direct personal experiences. These are made unconscious in the individual by such things as the change of attention from one thing to another, simple forgetfulness, or a repression. Underneath these idiosyncratic layers, however, are the archetypes which form the psychic contents of all human experiences. Jung described this deeper layer as "a psychic activity which goes on independently of the conscious mind and is not dependent even on the upper layers of the unconscious—untouched, and perhaps untouchable—by personal experience" (Campbell, 1971). This bottom layer of the shadow is also what Jung referred to as the collective unconscious.
==Encounter with the shadow==
The encounter with the shadow plays a central part in the process of individuation. Jung considered that 'the course of individuation...exhibits a certain formal regularity. Its signposts and milestones are various archetypal symbols' marking its stages; and of these 'the first stage leads to the experience of the SHADOW'.J. Jacobi, The Psychology of C. G. Jung (London 1946) p. 102 If 'the breakdown of the persona constitutes the typical Jungian moment both in therapy and in development',Peter Homans, Jung in Context (London 1979) p. 102 it is this which opens the road to the shadow within, coming about when 'Beneath the surface a person is suffering from a deadly boredom that makes everything seem meaningless and empty ... as if the initial encounter with the Self casts a dark shadow ahead of time'.von Franz, "Process" p. 170 Jung considered as a perennial danger in life that 'the more consciousness gains in clarity, the more monarchic becomes its content...the king constantly needs the renewal that begins with a descent into his own darkness'C. G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis (London 1963) p. 334 — his shadow - which the 'dissolution of the persona'C. G. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (London 1953) p. 277 sets in motion.
"The shadow personifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself" and represents "a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well".C. G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (London 1996) p. 284 and p. 21 If and when 'an individual makes an attempt to see his shadow, he becomes aware of (and often ashamed of) those qualities and impulses he denies in himself but can plainly see in others — such things as egotism, mental laziness, and sloppiness; unreal fantasies, schemes, and plots; carelessness and cowardice; inordinate love of money and possessions — ...[a] painful and lengthy work of self-education".von Franz, "Process" p. 174
The dissolution of the persona and the launch of the individuation process also brings with it 'the danger of falling victim to the shadow ... the black shadow which everybody carries with him, the inferior and therefore hidden aspect of the personality'C. G. Jung, "Psychology of the Transference Collected Works 16 (London 1954) p. 219 — of a merger with the shadow.
==Merger with the shadow==
According to Jung, the shadow sometimes overwhelms a person's actions; for example, when the conscious mind is shocked, confused, or paralyzed by indecision. 'A man who is possessed by his shadow is always standing in his own light and falling into his own traps ... living below his own level':Jung, Archetypes p. 123 hence, in terms of the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 'it must be Jekyll, the conscious personality, who integrates the shadow ... and not vice versa. Otherwise the conscious becomes the slave of the autonomous shadow'.Stevens, Jung p. 50
Individuation inevitably raises that very possibility. As the process continues, and 'the libido leaves the bright upper world ... sinks back into its own depths...below, in the shadows of the unconscious',C. G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious (London 1944) p. 181-2 so too what comes to the forefront is 'what was hidden under the mask of conventional adaptation: the shadow', with the result that 'ego and shadow are no longer divided but are brought together in an — admittedly precarious — unity'.Jung "Psychology" p. 238-9
The impact of such 'confrontation with the shadow produces at first a dead balance, a standstill that hampers moral decisions and makes convictions ineffective...tenebrositas, chaos, melancholia'.Jung, Mysterium p. 497 Consequently, (as Jung knew from personal experience) 'in this time of descent — one, three, seven years, more or less — genuine courage and strength are required',Robert Bly/Marion Woodman, The Maiden King (Dorset 1999) p. 179 with no certainty of emergence. Nevertheless, Jung remained of the opinion that while 'no one should deny the danger of the descent ... every descent is followed by an ascent ...enantiodromia';C. G. Jung, Symbols of Transformation (London 1956) p. 357 and p. 375 and assimilation of — rather than possession by — the shadow becomes at last a real possibility.
==Assimilation of the shadow==
Enantiodromia launches 'a different perspective. We begin to travel [up] through the healing spirals...straight up'.Bly/Woodman, Maiden p. 160-1 Here the struggle is to retain awareness of the shadow, but not identification with it. 'Non-identification demands considerable moral effort...prevents a descent into that darkness'; but though 'the conscious mind is liable to be submerged at any moment in the unconscious... understanding acts like a life-saver. It integrates the unconscious'Jung, "Psychology" pp. 260, 266 and 269 - reincorporates the shadow into the personality, producing a stronger, wider consciousness than before. 'Assimilation of the shadow gives a man body, so to speak',Jung, Practice p. 239 and provides thereby a launching-pad for further individuation. 'The integration of the shadow, or the realisation of the personal unconscious, marks the first stage of the analytic process...without it a recognition of anima and animus is impossible'.C. G. Jung, Aion (London 1959) p. 22 Conversely 'to the degree to which the shadow is recognised and integrated, the problem of the anima, i.e., of relationship, is constellated',Jung, Archetypes p. 270n and becomes the centre of the individuation quest.
Neveretheless Jungians warn that 'acknowledgement of the shadow must be a continuous process throughout one's life';David L. Hart, "The classical Jungian school" in Polly Young-Eisendrath and Terence Dawson, The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Cambridge 1977) p. 92 and even after the focus of individuation has moved on to the animus/anima, 'the later stages of shadow integration' will continue to take place - the grim 'process of washing one's dirty linen in private',Stevens, On Jung p. 235 accepting one's shadow.
==References==
==Further reading==
*Abrams, Jeremiah, and Connie Zweig. Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature. Tarcher, 1991, ISBN 087477618X
*Abrams, Jeremiah. The Shadow in America. Nataraj. 1995
*Bly, Robert. "A little book on the human shadow". Edited by William Booth. Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1988, ISBN 0-06-254847-6
*Campbell, Joseph, ed. The Portable Jung, Translated by R.F.C. Hull, New York: Penguin Books, 1971.
*Johnson, Robert A., Owning Your Own Shadow : Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche, 128 pages, Harper San Francisco, 1993, ISBN 0-06-250754-0
*Johnson, Robert A., Inner Work : Using Dreams and Creative Imagination for Personal Growth and Integration, 241 pages, Harper San Francisco, 1989, ISBN 0-06-250431-2
*Neumann, Erich. Depth Psychology and a New Ethic Shambhala; Reprint edition (1990). ISBN 0-87773-571-9.
*Vandebrake, Mark. "Children of the Mist: Dwarfs in German Mythology, Fairy Tales, and Folk Legends" 135 pages. A work that interprets dwarf depictions throughout German history as shadow symbols.
* Chopra, Deepak, Marianne Williamson, Debbie Ford. The Shadow Effect: Illuminating the Hidden Power of Your True Self. HarperOne, 2010. ISBN 0061962651.
==External links==
* Discussion of the Shadow for Individuals and Groups 
* Jung's Concept of the Shadow
* The Shadow Muse — Gifts of Your Dark Side
* The Shadow Process
* Inviting the demon. (Milarepa, Tibetan Buddhism)(The Shadowissue) Judith Simmer-Brown, Parabola Vol.22 No.2 (Summer 1997) pp. 12–18
Category:Jungian archetypes