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In analytical psychology, the shadow (also known as ego-dystonic complex, repressed id, shadow aspect, or shadow archetype) is an unconscious aspect of the personality that does not correspond with the ego ideal, leading the ego to resist and project the shadow, creating conflict with it. The shadow may be personified as archetypes which relate to the collective unconscious, such as the trickster.[1][2][3][4][5]
The shadow can be thought of as the blind spot of the psyche.[6] The repression of one's id, while maladaptive, prevents shadow integration, the union of id and ego.[7][8] While they are regarded as differing on their theories of the function of repression of id in civilization, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung coalesced at Platonism, wherein id rejects the nomos.[clarification needed][9] Persona is contrasted against the shadow.[10] Jung regarded the shadow as unconscious – id and biography – suppressed under the superego's ego-ideal, the way the superego wants to be.[11] The shadow is projected onto one's social environment as cognitive distortions.[12] However, the shadow can also be regarded as "roughly equivalent to the whole of the Freudian unconscious",[13] and Jung himself asserted that "the result of the Freudian method of elucidation is a minute elaboration of man's shadow side unexampled in any previous age".[14]: 63
Contrary to a Freudian definition of shadow, the idea can include everything outside the light of consciousness and may be positive or negative.[citation needed] Because a subject can repress awareness or conceal self-threatening aspects of the self, consensus of the idea of the shadow that it is a negative function in the self, despite the extent of the repression failing to prohibit these aspects.[15] There are positive aspects that can remain hidden in one's shadow – especially in people with low self-esteem, anxieties, and false beliefs – with these aspects being brought to the conscious mind and exercised through analysis and therapy.[16] It may be considered the subject's identification with id, superseded in early childhood, though it can also be influenced by early to late childhood.[17][18]
Jung wrote that if awareness of the projection of the shadow remains repressed, "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", lending the idea autonomous qualities which can have consequences on the id and the ego.[19] These projections insulate and delude individuals in society by acting as a symbolically deployed barrier between the ego and the ego-less Real.
The collective unconscious, a concept that states that all of humanity shares some unconscious ideals, forms a projective identification with uncertainty and feelings of helplessness along with other negative feelings. This projection frequently identifies with the figure of the Devil as the "fourth" aspect of the Pauline-Christian trinity, functioning as its grounding myth.[24] This idea can be seen in other mythologies, for instance, the ancient-Egyptian-devil Set "represents overwhelming affects".[25] The collective shadow is ancestral and is carried by the collective experience of the human race (i.e., in-group and out-group: dehumanization; e.g., hate crime).[26][27]
Jungians believe that the shadow aspect of the Self may appear in dreams and visions (i.e., mise-en-scène),[28][29] in various forms and typically "appears as a person of the same sex as that of the dreamer."[30]: 175 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 from the collective unconscious and is important in the Jungian approach to dream interpretation.[30]: 183 Nevertheless, some Jungians maintain that "the shadow contains, besides the personal shadow, the shadow of society [...] fed by the neglected and repressed collective values."[31]
Jung also made the suggestion that the shadow may be made up of many layers. 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 specific 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."[32]
As the shadow is a part of the unconscious, a method called Shadow work is practiced through active imagination with daydreaming and meditation – the experience is then mediated by dialectical interpretation through narrative and art (pottery, poetry, drawing, dancing, singing, etc.); analysts perform dreamwork on analysands, using amplification to raise the unconscious to conscious awareness.[33][34][35] Jung uses the term Nekyia to describe the descent into darkness, where the ego fades.[36]
The eventual 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."[37] If "the breakdown of the persona constitutes the typical Jungian moment both in therapy and in development,"[38] it is this that 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."[30]: 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"[39]: 334 – his shadow – which the "dissolution of the persona" sets in motion.[40]
"The shadow personifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself",[41]: 284 whether consciously or unconsciously, and represents "a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well."[41]: 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...[30]: 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"[42] – resulting in a merger with the shadow.
Jung considered merging with the shadow as typically bad, viewing it as the process of the suppressed id overwriting or controlling the ego. 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."[41]: 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."[43]
Individuation inevitably raises that very possibility as it further separates the ego from the collective unconsciousness. 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."[44] 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."[45][full citation needed]
The effect of such "confrontation with the shadow produces at first a dead balance, a standstill that hampers moral decisions and makes convictions ineffective ... nigredo, tenebrositas, chaos, melancholia."[39] 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",[46] 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",[47] and assimilation of – rather than possession by – the shadow becomes a possibility.
Assimilation[48] is the process of acknowledging the shadow and possibly incorporating parts of it into the ego. Jungians believe this may lead to a numinous experience, while anchoring to the numinosum effect without reality testing can lead to ego inflation (qv., archetypal possession).[49]
In analytical psychology, the struggle for the superego is to retain awareness of the shadow, but not to become it or be controlled by it. "Non-identification demands considerable moral effort [which] prevents a descent into that darkness"; and 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."[50][full citation needed] This reincorporates the shadow into the personality, producing a stronger, wider consciousness than before. "Assimilation of the shadow gives a man body, so to speak,"[14]: 239 thereby providing a launchpad for further individuation. "The integration of the shadow, or the realization of the personal unconscious, marks the first stage in the analytic process... without it a recognition of anima and animus is impossible."[51] Conversely, "to the degree in which the shadow is recognised and integrated, the problem of the anima, i.e., of relationship, is constellated,"[41]: 270n and becomes the centre of the individuation quest.
Carolyn Kaufman wrote that "in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness – or perhaps because of this – the shadow is the seat of creativity;"[52] so that for some, it may be that "the dark side of his being, his sinister shadow...represents the true spirit of life as against the arid scholar."[53] Nevertheless, Jungians warn that "acknowledgement of the shadow must be a continuous process throughout one's life;"[54] 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,"[55] of accepting one's shadow.
Opposing Personality [...] Senex/Witch [...] Trickster [...] Demonic Personality [...] EGO-DYSTONIC COMPLEXES Shadow.
The shadow, that portion of the self that the ego designates as bad and projects as unwanted, carries what is treacherous and subversive – what is unethical and immoral – within the self and hides it, relegating its contents to unconscious areas within the psyche where it can be lived out in projection, using and abusing the other as a vehicle for the bad aspects of the self.
The shadow is the moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality [...] To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. [...] dark characteristics[...]the inferiorities constituting the shadow[...]have an emotional nature, a kind of autonomy, and accordingly an obsessive or, better, a possessive quality. [...] These resistances are usually bound up with projections, which are not recognized as such, and their recognition is a moral achievement beyond the ordinary.
Archetypal psychology envisions the fundamental ideas of the psyche to be expressed of persons – Hero, Nymph, Mother, Senex, Child, Trickster, Amazon, Puer and many other specific prototypes bearing the names and stories of the Gods. These are the root metaphors.
The shadow symbolizes our 'other side,' the unrecognizable and disowned, animal-like personality rejected by the ego. [...] [T]he trickster, in Jung's psychology, is the collective shadow figure par excellence.
Those parts of our psyches that are hidden and that we find difficult to face, Jung called 'the shadow'.
[M]odern civilization provides inadequate opportunities for the shadow archetype to become individuated because in childhood our animal instincts are usually punished by parents. This leads to repression: the shadow returns to the unconscious layer of the personality, where it remains in a primitive, undifferentiated state.
The shadow is all that gets suppressed in the process of becoming a decent, civilized adult. [... it's] man's thwarted selfishness, his unadmitted desires, the swearwords he never spoke, the murders he didn't commit. The shadow is the dark side of his soul, the unadmitted, the inadmissible.
As for the 'shadow' side of human nature (on which there is no difference of opinion between Freud and Jung) we may remind ourselves of Plato's phrase that 'in all of us, even those that are the most respectable, there is a lawless, wildbeast nature which appears in sleep' [...] (Republic 571-2)
[T]he polarity of opposites[...]persona-shadow[.])
Jung construed [...] the personal shadow, [as] a biological and biographical shadow unique to each person, consisting of whatever innate instincts and transpersonal potentials we have suppressed in the course of adapting to society, along with archaic and traumatic memories [of the unconscious]. [...] The personal shadow is rooted in the shadow of our social group, which has moulded our ego-ideal and world view[.]
The major activity of the shadow is what Jung calls projection. [...] cast[ing] forth its ruling [negative] emotions [...] into other people ('people don't like me') or [...] considers [everything] a hostile, malevolent environment ('the world is against me').
[A]s superstition holds, a man without shadow is the devil himself. [...] The devil[...]can be regarded as God's dissatisfaction with himself, a projection of his own doubt [...] The devil here is a psychopomp[.]
So it is originally a darkness of obscurity and mystery, rather than a darkness of degeneracy, disease or 'evil'. [...] a byproduct of our tendency to repress impulses which are anathema to our ego-ideals[.]
Jung often uses language we usually associate with God to think about the collective unconscious.
Jungian theory commonly fills the place of the 'fourth' with the archetypal feminine but also includes evil as a fourth element.
In Egyptian myth the devil Set, who is the enemy of the forces of order, represents overwhelming affects, including terrifying abandonment depression and dismemberment.
Jung construed [...] the collective shadow, an ancestral shadow which [has been] accrued in the course of history in respect of each collectivity [...] both particularistic social groups and the human species as a whole.
The shadow is projected outward, onto others. There's nothing wrong with me – it's them.
The shadow stands on the threshold between the conscious and unconscious mind, and we meet it in our dreams, as sister, brother, friend, beast, monster, enemy, guide.
The dreamer is the only one to see himself naked. And in contemplating his nakedness, he is alone. This, Freud says, is 'a suggestive point.' [...] the other [dream] people should be staring and laughing or becoming angry, but they are not.
Learning to [day]dream [...] is advisable for the serious practitioner of shadow work, and Jung developed the technique of active imagination to this end. If we carve out a regular space – time for silence and solitude, we may discern the murmurings of another voice within us or the spontaneous formation of an image in our mind [...] afterwards we need to record our experiences to render the memorable by writing a message, drawing an image, performing a dance sequence or vocalising a melody (cf. Hannah 1991; Rowan 2005, pp. 125-147)
Apart from using dreams, Jung's method of soliciting emanations and manifestations of the unconscious was that of 'active imagination,' a method that produces a kind of waking vision or phantasy, which he then subjected to what he called 'amplification,' consisting essentially in finding 'parallels' to those images in 'collective' imaginations, such as myths, religious systems and practices, visions, alchemy, yoga[.]
Active imagination is a technique that promotes dialogue between the ego and the self. The ego is deliberately set aside temporarily, and images from the unconscious arise and develop; the ego watches the story unfold as in a theatre, noting plot, characters, setting, dialogue. [...] If the patient is on their own [doing solo-work], it is obviously important that their ego is able to cope with whatever images and affects the self produces [...] the practitioner of active imagination can be overwhelmed by the emerging unconscious material[.] [...] Art therapy and drama therapy are based on the theory of active imagination; images can also be formulated in pottery, or poetry.
Jung refers to the descent into darkness as nekyia. In Psychology and Alchemy, Jung uses this Greek word to designate a ' 'journey to Hades,' a descent into the land of the dead.' [...] The nekyia ultimately leads to the fading of the ego's light and a death[.]
Only with a conscious integration of the shadow can the positive numinosum actualize. [...] The experience of our [human limiations via] embodied size is essential for the numinosum to gain actuality; without this knowledge of our limitations, and hence, an awareness of our humanity, contact with the numinosum leads to an inflated state. [...] ego [...] inflation[.]