WEB SIGHTS
THE SHADOW AND MID-LIFE RESOURCES
— Bruce Wochholz

The Shadow is a term introduced by Jung. It is everything in us that is unconscious, repressed, undeveloped and denied. These are dark rejected aspects of our being as well as light, so there is positive undeveloped potential in the Shadow. We all have a Shadow and confrontation with the Shadow is essential for self-awareness.
— The Shadow www.shadowdance.com/theshadow.html

BRUCE WOCHHOLZ

June/July 2003

WEB RESOURCES

The April/May issue of the AHP Perspective featured a cover story on Rollo May, one of the pioneers of humanistic psychology . According to May, in their concept of the daimon, the Greeks achieved a union of good and evil, where consciousness can integrate the daimonic, and make it personal. To live in accord with one’s daimon is difficult but deeply rewarding.

However, in Love and Will (Love and the Daimonic) and particularly in a companion chapter from Myths, Dreams and Religion, J. Campbell, ed . (Psychotherapy and the Daimonic), May suggests that facing one’s demons reminds us of Jung’s shadow side of the self, and that they are elements denied in Rogerian and like therapies. At first, for both patient and therapist, the Shadow is Evil—and Evil is that which is to be avoided, in Erich Neumann’s Depth Psychology and a New Ethic

Midlife Metamorphosis

Jung’s work addresses the developmental tasks of midlife. The problem of the second half of life is to find new meaning and purpose in living, and this, perhaps strangely enough, is best found in the neglected, inferior, and undeveloped side of the personality. The Stages of Life, Abstracts of the Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 8.

Murray Stein observes that the shadow represents the repressed in our life. At midlife, he says, the shadow or repressed returns and needs to be dealt with in a new way, because the seeds of psychological renewal and of possible future directions for life lie hidden within it. The shadow does hold significant positive features for the personality.

Allan Chinen’s current work also focuses on the “tasks” of middle age. In both Beyond the Hero , and a recent interview Midlife and the Shaman/Trickster , Chinen describes the Trickster as a teacher having both a hidden wisdom and a generativity. These ideas also relate to descriptions of the Shaman/Trickster that makes the Shadow conscious. Shamanic initiation is an apt metaphor for these processes. Mircea Eliade, in Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, emphasizes the use of helpers in a surprisingly similar way.

In Listening to Raven: The Shadow’s Role as Guide, Raven represents the role of the personal shadow as a wisdom figure, the shadow that can bring light to those hidden regions of the human psyche, if only we can confront and befriend that aspect of ourselves.

These ideas are further amplified in the Mythos Institute web site, founded to carry on the work of Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and Mircea Eliade.

The shadow, which is in conflict with the acknowledged values, cannot be accepted as a negative part of one’s own psyche and is therefore projected—that is it is transferred to the outside world and experienced as an outside object. It is combated, punished, and exterminated as “the alien out there” instead of being dealt with as one’s own inner problem.
Erich Neumann, Depth Psychology and a New Ethic

Shadow projection, both individual and collective, is where we usually project shadow qualities on to others or groups, who may or may not have the qualities we are rejecting, because we are rejecting qualities that we have but can’t acknowledge as our own. In shadow integration we can avoid shadow possession and withdraw shadow projection by recognizing that these qualities are part of ourselves and by attempting to channel their negative aspects in positive directions.

Marie-Louise von Franz in Projection and Re-Collection in Jungian Psychology: Reflections of the Soul amplifies the above ideas of daimon, inner companion, etc., to compensate for what is evil. The only place to address the problem of evil is in yourself, through the withdrawal of projections, to internalize opposites.

What is romancing the shadow? Learn how to: center yourself to meet the shadow; identify the cues of its appearance; trace its roots in family history; and build a more conscious, ongoing relationship to it.

AHP Members are encouraged to submit their web addresses to WebSights columnist Bruce Wochholz at bwochholz@mac.com for review. Sites should be primarily educational or informational, and relate to AHP’s interests, but member sites may emphasize services, books, workshops, tapes, or other commercial offerings.