Coming to Terms With Shadow

Bob Bongiovanni, MA

In a Dark Time

By THEODORE ROETHKE

In a dark time, the eye begins to see,

I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;

I hear my echo in the echoing wood—

A lord of nature weeping to a tree.

I live between the heron and the wren,

Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

What's madness but nobility of soul

At odds with circumstances?

The day^'s on fire!

I know the purity of pure despair,

My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.

That place among the rocks—is it a cave,

Or winding path? The edge is what I have.

A steady storm of correspondences!

A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,

And in broad day the midnight come again!

A man goes far to find out what he is—

Death of the self in a long, tearless night,

All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.

My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,

Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?

A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.

The mind enters itself, and God the mind,

And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

As we have discussed, shadow was described by Jung as “that which we prefer not to be.” This simple definition carries a lot of deeper meanings. As we encounter the external world, we get a constant stream of messages about values, beliefs, and norms – what’s right and wrong, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, and so on. Thus we shape a mask to show the world, living up to its expectations, and shaping our identity. Whatever does not make it into our identity is cast into the darkness, forming the shadow. Contrary to other schools of psychology, Jung felt it was essential for us to come to terms with the shadow. Shadow makes us uncomfortable, even ashamed, but if we don’t come to terms with it, we lose something powerful and important – our potential wholeness. If we go into complete denial – completely repressing the awareness and expression of shadow – it will build in power and intensity down in the deep blackness of the unconscious, eventually breaking through with unpredictable, even disastrous, effects.

How do we come to terms with the shadow in a healthy way? Today, we will talk about three approaches: projection, introjection, and integration. There is nothing inherently good or bad about any of these approaches, but two of these approaches – projection and introjection – are only helpful at the initial stages, leading to the third approach, integration.

According to Jung, the most common approach to coming to terms with shadow is projection – locating the shadow in a person or object external to the subject. Projection can therefore feel a level of control over the shadow and achieve both a temporary release and feeling of well-being. Thus, on the positive side, projection is a means by which contents of the inner world may be made available to ego-consciousness. On the negative side, shadow may continue to feel external, leading to demonization, even violence and warfare – the ego believing that, by eradicating evil in the world, it may be eradicated from the psyche. The healthy way of handling projection may be broken into five basic phases, according to analyst Andrew Samuels:

1) The person is convinced that what he sees in the other is real and true;

2) A gradual recognition dawns of a differentiation between how she/he “really” is and the projected image. This stage is facilitated by life events and dreams.

3) Some kind of judgment or assessment is made about the discrepancy;

4) A conclusion is reached that the original projection was erroneous or illusory;

5) A conscious search for the sources or origin of the projection is undertaken, including both collective and personal determinants of the projection.

The second way of handling shadow content is the opposite of projection – the process known as introjection. In Volume 6, Jung defines introjection as “an indrawing of the object into the subjective sphere of influence.” He goes on to state, “Whereas the paranoiac expels from his ego emotions which have become disagreeable, the neurotic helps himself to as large a portion of the outer world as his ego can ingest, and makes this an object of unconscious fantasies.” On the positive side, Jung saw introjection as that which under girds empathy – a softening of ego boundaries, experiencing the external as something internal. On the negative side, in extreme introjection, everything disagreeable, ugly and unacceptable is located in the subject. If it’s bad, it most be because of my fundamental unworthiness, my deeply flawed nature, and my weakness. This can lead to suicidal levels of self-recrimination, or a horribly shame-driven, hidden, lonely existence.

Thus, although not long term ways of coming to terms with shadow, both projection and introjection are superior to repression. At least shadow is acknowledged and known – either as external or as internal. However, for individuation to progress, Jung argues that the healthiest approach is integration. This is the process by which ego encounters shadow, unearths its source or origin, and comes to recognize that even disagreeable contents have potential worth, when the highest value is placed on wholeness, not externally determined perfection. What parts of life have been split off, shunned, and stunted because of repression, or prolonged projection or introjection? Might life be richer, more sustainable, more pleasant, and more meaningful if these contents were acknowledged and given at least partial consideration and expression? Moreover, if the roots of the shadow extend into the collective unconscious, the act of encountering, understanding, and giving expression to it is the ultimate social action, healing something that is wounded and broken in the community. Racism, sexism, homophobia, gender bias – all of these social cancers are rooted in unhealthy attitudes toward shadow, especially projection. Who will hold our fear, our mistrust of our own sexuality, and our dread of weakness? We cannot, we must not, expect some group to hold these things for us – we must hold them for ourselves and reclaim the truth that lies at their roots. This, of course, requires tremendous courage and ability to endure, whatever the consequences. I would like to end, again, with the final lines of the Roethke poem. Think of how these lines apply to the courageous reclaiming of shadow, re-imaging who we are, and who we dare to become –