Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature

by Connie Zweig

All the feelings and capacities that are rejected by the ego and exiled into the shadow contribute to the hidden power of the dark side of human nature. However, not all of them are what we consider to be negative traits. According to Jungian analyst Liliane Frey-Rohn, this dark treasury includes our infantile parts, emotional attachments, neurotic symptoms, as well as our undeveloped talents and gifts. The shadow, she says, “retains contact with the lost depths of the soul, with life and vitality—the superior, the universally human, yes, even the creative can be sensed there.”

For this reason, we see the shadow mostly indirectly, in the distasteful traits and actions of other people, out there where it is safer to observe it. When we react intensely to a quality in an individual or group—such as laziness or stupidity, sensuality, or spirituality—and our reaction overtakes us with great loathing or admiration, this may be our own shadow showing. We project by attributing this quality to the other person in an unconscious effort to banish it from ourselves, to keep ourselves from seeing it within.

So the personal shadow contains undeveloped, unexpressed potentials of all kinds. It is that part of the unconscious that is complementary to the ego and represents those characteristics that the conscious personality does not wish to acknowledge and therefore neglects, forgets, and buries, only to discover them in uncomfortable confrontations with others.

This is a perfect vicious circle which inevitably occurs whenever we are caught in a shadow projection (or in an animus or anima projection). A projection invariably blurs our own view of the other person. Even when the projected qualities happen to be real qualities of the other person—as in this case—the affect reaction which marks the projection points to the affect-toned complex in us which blurs our vision and interferes with our capacity to see objectively and relate humanly.

Ask someone to give a description of the personality type which he finds most despicable, most unbearable and hateful, and most impossible to get along with, and he will produce a description of his own repressed characteristics—a self-description which is utterly unconscious and which therefore always and everywhere tortures him as he receives its effect from the other person. These very qualities are so unacceptable to him precisely because they represent his own repressed side; only that which we cannot accept within ourselves do we find impossible to live with in others. Negative qualities which do not bother us so excessively, which we find relatively easy to forgive—if we have to forgive them at all—are not likely to pertain to our shadow.

The shadow is the archetypal experience of the “other fellow,” who in his strangeness is always suspect. It is the archetypal urge for a scapegoat, for someone to blame and attack in order to vindicate oneself and be justified; it is the archetypal experience of the enemy, the experience of blameworthiness which always adheres to the other fellow, since we are under the illusion of knowing ourselves and of having already dealt adequately with our own problems.

In other words, to the extent that I have to be right and good, he, she, or they become the carriers of all the evil which I...

Unfortunately repression does not eliminate the qualities or drives or keep them from functioning. It merely removes them from ego awareness; they continue as complexes. By being removed from view they are also removed from supervision and can thereby continue their existence unchecked and in a disruptive way. The shadow, then, consists of complexes, of personal qualities resting on drives and behavior patterns which are a definite “dark” part of the personality structure. In most instances they are readily observable by others. Only we ourselves cannot see them. The shadow qualities are usually in glaring contrast to the ego’s ideals and wishful efforts. The sensitive altruist may have a brutal egotist somewhere in himself; the shadow of the courageous fighter may be a whining coward; the everloving sweetheart may harbor a bitter shrew.

This brings us to the fundamental fact that the shadow is the door to our individuality. In so far as the shadow renders us our first view of the unconscious part of our personality, it represents the first stage toward meeting the Self. There is, in fact, no access to the unconscious and to our own reality but through the shadow.

Only when we realize that part of ourselves which we have not hitherto seen or preferred not to see can we proceed to question and find the sources from which it feeds and the basis on which it rests. Hence no progress or growth is possible until the shadow is adequately confronted—and confronting means more than merely knowing about it. It is not until we have truly been shocked into seeing ourselves as we really are, instead of as we wish or hopefully assume we are, that we can take the first step toward individual reality.

When we refuse to face the shadow or try to fight it with willpower alone, saying, “Get thee beind me, Satan,” we merely relegate this energy to the unconscious, and from there it exerts its power in a negative, compulsive, projected form.

These projections eventually so shape our own attitudes toward others that at last we literally bring about that which we project. We imagine ourselves so long pursued by ill will that ill will is eventually produced by others in response to our vitriolic defensiveness. Our fellow men see this as unprovoked hostility; this arouses their defensiveness and their shadow projections upon us, to which we in turn react with our defensiveness, thereby causing more ill will.

when it catches a glimpse of the shadow the ego most often reacts with an attempt to eliminate it. Our will is mobilized and we decide, “I just won’t be that way any more!” Then comes the final shattering shock, when we discover that, in part at least, this is impossible no matter how we try. For the shadow represents energically charged autonomous patterns of feeling and behavior. Their energy cannot simply be stopped by an act of will. What is needed is rechanneling or transformation. However, this task requires both an awareness and an acceptance of the shadow as something which cannot simply be gotten rid of.

Even though we are not responsible for the way we are and feel, we have to take responsibility for the way we act. Therefore we have to learn to discipline ourselves. And discipline rests on the ability to act in a manner that is contrary to our feelings when necessary. This is an eminently human prerogative as well as a necessity.

Repression, on the other hand, simply looks the other way.

The shadow has to have its place of legitimate expression somehow, sometime, somewhere. By confronting it we have a choice of when, how and where we may allow expression to its tendencies in a constructive context. And when it is not possible to restrain the expression of its negative side we may cushion its effect by a conscious effort to add a mitigating element or at least an apology.

Where we cannot or must not refrain from hurting we may at least try to do it kindly and be ready to bear the consequences. When we virtuously look the other way we have no such possibility; then the shadow, left to its own devices, is likely to run away with us in a destructive or dangerous manner. Then it just “happens” to us, and usually when it is most awkward; since we do not know what is happening we can do nothing to mitigate its effect and we blame it all on the other fellow.

The shadow cannot be eliminated. It is the ever-present dark brother or sister. Whenever we fail to see where it stands, there is likely to be trouble afoot. For then it is certain to be standing behind us. The adequate question therefore never is: Have I a shadow problem? Have I a negative side? But rather: Where does it happen to be right now? When we cannot see it, it is time to beware! And it is helpful to remember Jung’s formulation that a complex is not pathological per se. It becomes pathological only when we assume that we do not have it; because then it has us.

Here it’s important to understand the crucial difference between the shadow and what’s genuinely evil. As Fritz Kunkel once said, the secret is that the ego is the devil—not the shadow. He believed there is evil beyond the ego—an archetypal evil—but for most people, it’s the ego that’s really the problem.

you were raised a Christian with the ego ideal of being loving, morally upright, kind, and generous, then you’d have to repress any qualities you found in yourself that were antithetical to the ideal: anger, selfishness, crazy sexual fantasies, and so on. All these qualities that you split off would become the secondary personality called the shadow. And if that secondary personality became sufficiently isolated, you would become what’s known as a multiple personality.

Jung said the truth of the matter is that the shadow is ninety percent pure gold. Whatever has been repressed holds a tremendous amount of energy, with a great positive potential. So the shadow, no matter how troublesome it may be, is not intrinsically evil. The ego, in its refusal of insight and its refusal to accept the entire personality, contributes much more to evil than the shadow.

Now the shadow never lies; it’s the ego that lies about its real motives. That’s why successful psychotherapy, and any genuine religious conversion, requires absolute honesty about oneself.

The value judgment of the feeling function is a reliable determiner of the good and evil in a situation—provided that it has the right information. If it doesn’t have all the information, or sees only a part of the whole situation, the feeling function is perfectly capable of arriving at an erroneous conclusion.

Then a person is much less likely to become affiliated with genuine evil, because the integration of the shadow is always concurrent with the dissolution of the false persona. One becomes much more realistic about oneself; seeing the truth about one’s own nature always has very salutary effects. Honesty is the great defense against genuine evil. When we stop lying to ourselves about ourselves, that’s the greatest protection we can have against evil.

SANFORD: Yes, the shadow is an energy system in the dream that’s at least as powerful as you are. In the psychic arena of the dream, all the elements of the psyche are less distinct from one another, and the dream ego may either observe them or become them, or something in between. The shadow is always an aspect of the ego itself, the qualities of the shadow could have become part of the structure of the ego. You might say the shadow is like the ego’s brother or sister, and not necessarily a sinister figure. And it’s important to remember that the shadow always has a reason for anything it does, a reason related to those qualities excluded from the ego. To become the shadow in a dream is fairly unusual; it’s more likely that the dream ego will observe the shadow changing forms during the dream.

The idea is that the ego is originally quite close to the center of the Self. As it moves farther away, it develops an egocentric posture, which is often exacerbated by unfavorable childhood influences. The nature of those influences will determine the nature of one’s egocentric defenses, and hence the nature of the shadow.

There’s a tremendous difference between a strong ego and an egocentric ego; the latter is always weak. Individuation, the attainment of one’s real potential, can’t take place without the strong ego.

The result is that we shall constantly (though involuntarily) do things behind our own backs that support this other side, and thus we shall unwittingly help our enemy. If, on the contrary, we realize the projection and can discuss matters without fear or hostility, dealing with the other person sensibly, then there is a chance of mutual understanding—or at least a truce.

Whether the shadow becomes our friend or enemy depends largely upon ourselves.

the shadow is not necessarily always an opponent. In fact, he is exactly like any human being with whom one has to get along, sometimes by giving in, sometimes by resisting, sometimes by giving love—whatever the situation requires. The s...

There are at least five effective pathways for traveling inward to gain insight into the composition of our shadow: (1) soliciting feedback from others as to how they perceive us; (2) uncovering the content of our projections; (3) examining our “slips” of tongue and behavior, and investigating what is really occurring when we are perceived other than we intended to be perceived; (4) considering our humor and our identifications; and (5) studying our dreams, daydreams, and fantasies.

The simplest method is to list all the qualities we do not like in other people; for instance, conceit, short temper, selfishness, bad manners, greed, and others. When the list is finally complete (and it will probably be quite lengthy), we must extract those characteristics that we not only dislike in others, but hate, loathe, and despise. This shorter final list will be a fairly accurate picture of our personal shadow. This will probably be very hard to believe and even harder to accept.

but any time our response to another person involves excessive emotion or overreaction, we can be sure that something unconscious has been prodded and is being activated.

Conflict situations generate many issues and bring forth strong emotions; consequently, they provide an exceptional arena for possible shadow projections. In the experience of conflict we may be able to learn much about our shadow characteristics. What we decry in the “enemy” may be nothing less than a shadow projection of our own darkness.

We also project our positive shadow qualities onto others: We see in others those positive traits which are our very own, but which, for whatever reason, we refuse to allow entry into our consciousness and are undiscernible to us.

These illustrations demonstrate undesirable situations but they nevertheless demonstrate the power of positive projection. Therefore we do well to realize the presence of potential positive dimensions of our shadow as well as negative. We need to list these qualities we admire and deeply admire in other people. Then when we hear ourselves saying, “Oh, but I could never be like that,” we would do well to investigate those traits, for they are undoubtedly a part of our Golden Shadow.

shadow is all that we wouldn’t dare do, but would like to

The entire process of ego and persona development is a natural response to our environment and is influenced by communication with our family, friends, teachers, and clergy through their approval and disapproval, acceptance and shame.

When we consider this scenario occurring in the family household, we can see how the alter ego develops. The shadows of other family members have a strong influence on the newly forming disowned self, especially when the dark elements are not recognized within the family group, or when the members collude to conceal the shadow of a powerful, weak, or beloved family member.

Eventually the child comes to the conclusion that some thoughts and feelings are so unacceptable that they should be eliminated, so he constructs an imaginary parent in his head to police his thoughts and activities, a part of the mind that psychologists call the “superego.” Now, whenever the child has a forbidden thought or indulges in an “unacceptable” behavior, he experiences a self-administered jolt of anxiety. This is so unpleasant that the child puts to sleep some of those forbidden parts of himself—in Freudian terms, he represses them. The ultimate price of his obedience is a loss of wholeness.

To fill the void, the child creates a “false self,” a character structure that serves a double purpose: it camouflages those parts of his being that he has repressed and protects him from further injury.

In a sense, he is right. His negative traits are not a part of his original nature. They are forged out of pain and become a part of an assumed identity, an alias that helps him maneuver in a complex and sometimes hostile world. This doesn’t mean, however, that he doesn’t have these negative traits; there are any number of witnesses who will attest that he does. But in order to maintain a positive self-image and enhance his chances for survival, he has to deny them. These negative traits became what is referred to as the “disowned self,” those parts of the false self that are too painful to acknowledge.

We have now succeeded in fracturing your original wholeness, the loving and unified nature that you were born with, into three separate entities: Your “lost self,” those parts of your being that you had to repress because of the demands of society. Your “false self,” the façade that you erected in order to fill the void created by this repression and by a lack of adequate nurturing. Your “disowned self,” the negative parts of your false self that met with disapproval and were therefore denied.

The only part of this complex collage that you were routinely aware of was the parts of your original being that were still intact and certain aspects of your false self. Together these elements formed your “personality,” the way you would describe yourself to others. Your lost self was almost totally outside your awareness; you had severed nearly all connections with these repressed parts of your being. Your disowned self, the negative parts of your false self, hovered just below your level of awareness and was constantly threatening to emerge. To keep it hidden, you had to...

To the same degree that the Positive Mother accepts and cherishes the child’s nature with all its weaknesses and inadequacies, the Negative Mother rejects it and demands that its insufficiencies be overcome. This occurs on a very collective level, however, so that it amounts to a rejection of all that is unique and individual in the child; or all the factors that do not live up to an image the mother may have of how her child should be. The consequence of such an experience is that the child must hide or repress his own uniqueness, and these qualities become incorporated into the shadow. Since the shadow always contains many things which are really unacceptable, repugnant and destructive to others and to society, such contamination of individuality and shadow can be disastrous. The individual then experiences acceptance of the soul and shadow as identical. This makes it extremely difficult for him to establish or maintain a close human connection with anyone. Whenever one begins to get close to such a person, he will invariably do something to make one reject him. We need to try to understand more about this phenomenon since it is so common.

Why does someone suffering from the deep archetypal wound of betrayal seem to continually provoke rejection? It is almost as if something in him is asking for rejection. Such an individual often expresses just this view about himself. For some time I thought this was entirely owing to a fear of closeness, which exposes the old wound to further injury. This certainly made sense until I realized that although the wound may be exposed in the openness of a close human connection, it is the childhood experience of betrayal and rejection which caused the wound in the first place. Therefore, when a person both rejects and provokes rejection, the original wounding situation is repeated. Obviously he does not avoid suffering through these unconscious mechanisms. Let us look for other explanations.

The facts are better understood if they are seen as a consequence of a person’s inability to distinguish between shadow and soul. This evokes deep feelings of shame, guilt and fear whenever such an individual enters into a communion with another soul. In other words, there are infantile and regressive elements in the shadow which should have been assimilated and integrated into the total personality, but this has...

Acceptance of these qualities in another goes along with the love and respect one person has for another’s soul, but it does not mean that one is willing to be victimized by the shadow.

But this is precisely what is sought by those individuals who provoke rejection. That is, that they should be allowed to give full expression to their shadow, and that they should be loved for the punishment which it inflicts—they feel that only then will they experience true acceptance and love. This throws a somewhat different light on the problem and points to a need to get closer rather than to a fear of being close. To put it another way, there is a deep need to rid oneself of the guilt and fear-provoking elements of the shadow, which is why it is continually being brought into those relationships which offer the possibility of a close human connection.

This is especially destructive if the parents allow themselves to be angry, but not the child. “I am allowed to get angry, but you are not,” is often the de facto attitude that parents express.