Тень в юнгианской психологии

Term in Jungian psychology

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, leading to a conflict with it. In short, the shadow is the self's emotional blind spot the part the ego does not want to acknowledge projected as archetypes—or, in a metaphorical sense image complexes, personified within the collective unconscious; e. g., trickster.

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. This idea can be seen in other mythologies, for instance, the ancient Egyptian devil Set "represents overwhelming affects". 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).

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. Nekyia is the descent into darkness, where the ego fades. 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." If "the breakdown of the persona constitutes the typical Jungian moment both in therapy and in development," 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. "—his shadow—which the "dissolution of the persona" sets in motion. "The shadow personifies everything that the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself", 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. "—resulting in a merger with the shadow.

To preface, merging with the shadow is typically a bad thing as it is 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." 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." 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." 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." 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", and assimilation of—rather than possession by—the shadow becomes a possibility.

Assimilation is the process of comprehending the shadow, it may involve the ego adapting certain aspects of the shadow, or it might be the mere acknowledgment of its existence. Enantiodromia—based on the concept of midlife crisis—is redirected psychic energy (q. v., decathexis). Shadow integration leads to a numinous experience; anchoring to the numinosum effect without reality testing can lead to ego inflation (qv., archetypal possession). "We begin to travel [up] through the healing spirals straight up." 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," Conversely, "to the degree in which the shadow is recognised and integrated, the problem of the anima, i. e., of relationship, is constellated," 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." Nevertheless, Jungians warn that "acknowledgement of the shadow must be a continuous process throughout one's life;" 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," of accepting one's shadow.