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Concept
Shadow (psychology)
Summary
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. In short, the shadow is the self's emotional blind spot, projected (as archetypes—or, metaphorical sense-image complexes, personified within the collective unconscious); e.g., trickster.
Defence mechanism and Anxiety
Dark triad and Otto F. Kernberg
The development and size of the shadow runs parallel to that of the ego and its defenses.
The shadow is conceptually the blind spot of the psyche; the repression of one's id, while maladaptive, prevents shadow integration. While they are regarded as differing on their theories of the function of repression of id in civilization, Freud and Jung coalesced at Platonism, wherein id rejects the nomos. Persona is contradistinct to shadow. Jung regarded the shadow as unconscious—id and biography—suppressed under the superego's ego-ideal.
The shadow is projected onto one's social environment as cognitive distortions. However, the shadow can also be regarded as "roughly equivalent to the whole of the Freudian unconscious", and Jung himself asserted that "the result of the Freudian method of elucidation is a minute elaboration of man's shadow side unexampled in any previous age".
Contrary to a Freudian definition of shadow, the idea can include everything outside the light of consciousness and may be positive or negative. Because a subject can repress awareness or conceal self-threatening aspects of the self, consensus of the idea of the shadow that it is a negative function in the self, despite the extent of the repression failing to prohibit these aspects. There are positive aspects that can remain hidden in one's shadow—especially in people with low self-esteem, anxieties, and false beliefs—with these aspects being brought to the conscious mind and exercised through analysis and therapy.
Official source
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