Sometimes it is healthy to explore the darkest side of human nature , the darkest of the Human Psyche. The great psychoanalyst Carl Jung called it "Owning your own Shadow".
Like Freud, Jung posited the existence of a conscious and an unconscious mind.
A model to describe this phenomenon here is an iceberg. The part of the iceberg that is above the surface of the water is seen as the conscious mind. Consciousness is the part of the mind directly known to us, readily accesible. It is where we think, feel, sense and intuit. It is through conscious activity that the person becomes an individual. It’s the part of the mind that we “live in” most of the time, and contains information that is in our immediate awareness
Below the level of the conscious mind, and the bulk of the ice berg, is what Freud would call the unconscious, and what Jung would call the “personal unconscious.” These contain thoughts, feelings, urges and other information that is difficult to bring to consciousness.
Experiences that do not reach consciousness, experiences that are not congruent with who we think we are, and things that have become “repressed” are found at this level.
The contents of the personal unconscious are available through hypnosis, guided imagery, and especially dreams. Although not directly accessible, material in the personal unconscious has gotten there sometime during our lifetime.Dreams are directly the result of subconscious
Thus, the depth psychologist would say that many decisions, indeed some of the most important ones that have to do with choosing a mate or a career, are determined by unconscious factors.
The idea of psychological archetypes is among Jung’s most important contributions to Western thought.
An ancient idea somewhat like Plato’s idea of Forms or “patterns” in the divine mind that determine the form material objects will take, the archetype is in all of us.
The word “archetype” comes from the Greek “arche” meaning “first, and “type” meaning “imprint or pattern.”
Psychological archetypes are first prints, or patterns that form the basic blueprint for major dynamics of the human personality.
For Jung, archetypes pre-exist in the collective unconscious of humanity. They repeat themselves eternally in the psyches of human beings and they determine how we both perceive and behave. These patterns are innate, inherent in every human. They reside as energy within the collective unconscious.
We can meet them by going inward to our dreams or fantasies. We can meet them by going outward to our myths, legends, literature and religions. The archetype can be a pattern, such as a kind of story. Or it can be a figure, such as a kind of character.
Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life,
the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.
Shadow as an archetype is the clearest and most articulated of all. The Shadow is not a difficult concept. It is merely the “dark side” of the psyche. It’s everything that doesn’t fit into the Persona. The word “persona” comes from the theater. In the Roman theater, characters would put on a mask that represented who the character was in the drama. The word “persona” literally means “mask.”
Basically Jungian belief is that the persona is how we would like to be seen by the world, a kind of psychological clothing that “mediates between our true selves and our environment” in much the same way that clothing gives an image.
The Shadow is what doesn’t fit into this Persona per se. These “refused and unacceptable” characteristics don’t go away; they are stuffed or repressed and can, if unattended to, begin to take on a life of their own. it can be likened to that of filling a bag.
Humans are taught a farrago of things at an early age, there are certain ways of thinking, being and relating that are not acceptable in society, and so it is stuffed in the Shadow bag.
For example,
The shadow side of sexuality is quite evident in the form of pornography, prostitution, and topless bars. Psychic energy that is not dealt with in a healthy way takes a dark or shadow form and begins to take on a life of its own.
Children have a fairly small bag but it keeps on growing as we age. This coincides perfectly with the Karma philosophy prevalent in Hinduism. Rather obtuse yet simplistic at it's core.
It is not merely the dark side of a particular archetypal pattern or form. Wherever Persona is, Shadow is also.
Wherever there is good, evil persists , for without evil, what is Good ? - PDD .
We first know the shadow as the personal unconscious in all that we abhor, deny and repress: power, greed, cruel and murderous thoughts, unacceptable impulses, morally and ethically wrong actions. All the demonic things by which human beings betray their inhumanity to other beings is shadow. But the Shadow is the unconscious .Since it is unconscious, we know it only indirectly.
Jung says that when you are in the grips of the archetype, you don’t have it, it has you.
Projection is an unconscious psychological mechanism. We all project onto other people parts of ourselves that we disown, that we deny. It’s them. It’s not us.
When someone is carrying parts of our own shadow, we will be repulsed by that person and whatever they stand for. It will feel like whoever they are is totally against our principles, moral values and ideals and we will be highly critical of their actions or way of being in the world.
Whatever we deem too negative to express, whatever goes against our highest ideals will be conveniently projected out into the world. Our energy is like a magnet and the unconscious is profound. The power of attraction states that it shall repeat itself over and over again.
Jung believed that whatever we are highly identified with in our character, the opposite extreme will be in our unconscious. He called this the law of opposites. So unconsciously we will attract the parts of us that we actually badly need. Isn't that usually among human lovers. They are opposites of each other.
There are no accidents. Both people are attracted or repelled whatever the case may be by an unconscious collusion. There is an order in the Universe whether we can see it or not. According to Jung, the psyche is always striving for wholeness and if we can take our cues from nature we will see that wholeness is balance.
For example there is light and the dark. Who would want no dark ?
We’ve all met people who seem too sticky and gooey. They are “too nice” and sickeningly sweet. We sense that they are somehow being fake when we are around them and we feel we never really know them. Usually they don't fool me, as I believe in Absolute candour. But still, mistakes are bound to occur. These people are barricaded behind their mask or persona. They will deliberately avoid any kind of negative reaction or emotion. They refuse to be real and suffer the acceptance of their own dark side and this can be a dangerous thing. We are better off knowing about our dark side because as Jung put it “Whatever one does not live, lives against one.”
How many times have you said something and then said, “I didn’t mean it that way.” Well , I am pretty sure that you meant it that way and our Shadow decided to have it’s say. The Shadow side of us relates to life much more authentically and it will come out whether we like it or not.
Repressing or denying our Shadow can lead us into experiences where we are overwhelmed by it and it can take us over. Then we can end up with egg on our face, acting in the very way we have denied or condemned in others and saying to ourselves, “Why did I act like that? I am not like that.” Well when we say it like that — “I’m not like that,” — we are like that, we just don’t know it.
There are many hidden and undeveloped parts in all of us and in attempting to keep our self-image intact, we will completely deny their existence. We do this because we want to be accepted by our society, by our families and our peers. Our baser qualities — our hypocritical behavior, our excessive greed, our ruthlessness, our ability to be manipulative — go straight into the unconscious. But that doesn’t mean they are not active in our life, they just live in the unconscious (unsupervised), and periodically they burst forth into our awareness and propel us into situations that we would much rather avoid.
Jung would say that there really is such a thing as evil, but that most of what we see as evil, particularly collectively, is shadow projection. The difficulty is separating the two. And we can only do that when we discover where the projection ends.For that , one has to Own the Shadow.
I shall give you something to think about, as a sort of a parthian shot :)
“The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.”
— DR. CARL GUSTAV JUNG
QED.
P.S know it is really long, hopefully it helps understand my frame of mind. I have been delving into th secrets of human nature for far too long :).
No comments:
Post a Comment