[Main Blog Post] [Book] Transforming Darkness

[jprussell]

This week, after the possibly synchronicity of folks asking about working with Jung's concept of the Shadow on JMG's Magic Monday right after having read an excerpt of a book on the Shadow, I decided to give it a read. It's called Transforming Darkness, and I found it interesting and helpful, though if you've read much on the subject or done much of such work, you might not find much new here.

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts here or through email.

Comments

Random thought

[k_a_nitz]

re: "two ends of a spectrum, with intermediate steps in between"

At times I wonder what it would be like if we switched instead to two points in a field with points that may be intermediate or may be off at an angle or some combination thereof. (Field in this sense could have as many dimensions as you wish.)

Re: Random thought

[jprussell]

You know, it's funny you mention that, as one of the things that Davis presents in the book that I didn't talk about in my review, because I didn't find it that useful for my purposes, is a 2x2 with two axes: Internal vs External, and Individual vs Collective.

He apparently based this off of something by Ken Wilber, about whom I've absorbed some of JMG's skepticism, since that was the first place I had heard of him, but it's not a bad model necessarily. In terms of the Shadow, this gives us mental manifestations of the Shadow (Individual+Interior), physical symptoms of repressed feelings (Individual+Exterior), cultural expressions of the Shadow (Collective+Interior), and societal/institutional expressions of the Shadow (Collective+Exterior).

He doesn't quite try to fuse this his Personal to Archetypal spectrum, and perhaps wisely, as it might be an awkward fit, but that's at least one example of applying multiple dimensions to this concept. I suppose the merit of a 1-dimensional spectrum is simplification/focus, and more dimensions will allow you to account for/specify more things, but at the cost of complexity and/or over-specification (such as a model that implies combinations not actually possible in reality).

Re: Random thought

[k_a_nitz]

Yes, I think it is one of those the map is not the territory things. The map is useful, but you need to hold in the back of your mind that it is not the territory and so other maps are possible.

Re: Random thought

[jprussell]

Indeed! Always a useful concept to keep in mind, and always a challenge with our favored maps.

[thinking_turtle]

It took me two days to read your blog post. I'm impressed by the speed with which you devour books!

Your post taught me what a "complex" is, and the best explanation of the Jungian shadow I've read so far. I suppose suppressed emotions have a reason, and if you manage to unsuppress them, perhaps your life will become less colorful. I wonder if the knowledge is worth the risk.

[jprussell]

Thank you for your kind words! I am lucky enough to be able to catch up on stuff like reading right now, as I teach at a university and we're out for the summer, so I have some more flexibility in my daytime schedule, and my tastes being what they are, that mostly gets filled with reading!

As for the Shadow and the risk, sure, that's a concern. Jung and most of his disciples talk about the difference between "repression" and "sublimation," which is fairly easy to grasp in theory, but strikes me as much harder to pin down in practice. The basic idea is that repression is when you take unwanted thoughts, feelings, urges, or whatever, and shove them down before they even really register consciously, such that your ego can convince itself they never even really came up. Sublimation is where you have some degree of consciousness of your potentially-shadowy thoughts/feelings/etc, and instead decide to do something more healthy with them - maybe you realize the reason you want to scream at the poor clerk helping you is because you feel trapped in a dead-end job, and so you walk home with a new sense of purpose and go file some job applications.

Where I get hung up, though, is in distinguishing between some of the more "direct" methods of sublimation and just plain wallowing in potentially unhealthy patterns - for example, say you start channeling your rage into death metal, or drawings of extreme violence, or whatever. At what point does helpfully processing your darker feelings stop and feeding unhealthy patterns begin? As usual, I suppose that self-awareness is the true answer, so any practices that help with that ought to be good.

Anyhow, that's all a long way of saying that there is certainly some risk in engaging with your Shadow, but I think most Jungians would say that hiding from it doesn't make it go away - it just makes it show up in unexpected ways that you might not notice. Whatever you end up deciding to do (or not), good luck!

Cheers,
Jeff

[thinking_turtle]

Thanks for your reply! My current belief is that humans swing between good and bad moods. If you "deal with your shadow", you would eliminate the good mood along with the bad mood, and your mental life would become bland. Emotions like anger, loneliness or pain are "pushers" where happy emotions are "pullers". Shadowy emotions are pushing your attention to something that needs attention. This line of thinking worked for my back pain, where repressing it with pain killers or therapy made things worse, and changing my luxury chair into a simple stool improved things.

So I'm leaning towards becoming friends with the shadow instead of fighting it. I'm working to enjoy the mood swings, instead of always trying to have a good mood. The concept of sublimation sounds interesting, thanks for the pointer!

Cheers, Thinking-Turtle

[lincoln_lynx]

You are in good company with this belief. The Jung To Live By YT channel / podcast consider the Shadow a compensatory function, you're never finished with it, there's always contents you're not conscious of, and the Shadow makes sure you deal with them eventually.

[jprussell]

Agreed that it's sensible, and it's funny you mention "Jung to Live By," as Davis strongly recommended them a few places in the book and I've been meaning to check them out, I just prefer reading to video, so I hadn't gotten to it yet.

[lincoln_lynx]

They are interesting and frustrating in equal measure for me. Jung pointed out much of his work was his personal myth and I like how the "Jung To Live By" people put modern Jungians on blast for basically taking Jung as dogma. Their own system posits three main mental pathologies, Jungian, spirituality-related, Adlerian which are psycho-social (various power complexes and so on), and then Freudian. I find that and other parts of their theory interesting. And they go on and on about theory, then more theory, oh and if it's not enough theory, fear not, for you'll get another side of theory with your theory. I haven't read their books which might offer more practical advice but from the videos and podcasts you'd think for the practical advice section they'd tell you to get yourself a Jungian therapist who does hypnosis and leave it at that. Despite such frustrations, I consider them the best Jungian podcast, by far.

[jprussell]

Hah! I wonder if this might be a case of perverse incentives - it wouldn't surprise me at all if the folks who will want to subscribe to a Jungian youtube channel and watch video after video are more interested in theory than practice! I suppose they're largely following in Jung's footsteps, since his writings are mostly theory.

I agree that the idea of high-level categories of mental pathologies is interesting. Hearing that they're available as a podcast as well is also encouraging, as I tend to prefer either reading or listening to videos (reading when I have dedicated time, listening for commutes and chores, videos when I don't have another option).

Thanks again,
Jeff

[lincoln_lynx]

A good point. The hosts have said that often those drawn to Jung and according to their system, believe they have a Jungian pathology, have an Adlerian pathology instead, which in this context would mean there's a lot of folks interested in Jung purely for the sense of superiority they feel from understanding him. (Or thinking they understand him.)

[jprussell]

Huh, that's an interesting hypothesis, and seems plausible at least on a first pass.