I03 · Self-Deception and the Shadow
The shadow and repressed drives
Integrating disowned aggression, ambition, vitality or dark impulses instead of suppressing them.
Cues
Showing 10 of 10 cues
“What our age thinks of as the “shadow” and inferior part of the psyche contains more than something merely negative.”
“You can completely lose track of incredibly positive things about yourself - your beauty, goodness, strength, and virtue ... the so-called Golden shadow.”
Wholeness includes brokenness
Wholeness is the goal, but wholeness does not mean perfection — it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.
PrincipleThe shadow and repressed drivesCharacter and moral integrity2 more related links
Lenses
Modules
“In the darkness of the unconscious a treasure lies hidden, the ... “treasure hard to attain” ... the fight against the paralyzing grip of the unconscious calls forth man’s creative powers ... it needs heroic courage to do battle with these forces and to wrest from them the treasure hard to attain. Whoever succeeds in this has triumphed indeed.”
“To “give style” to one’s character - a great and rare art. It is practiced by those who survey all the strengths and weaknesses of their nature and then fit them into an artistic plan until every one of them appears as art and reason and even weaknesses delight the eye.”
“The difficulties of our psychotherapeutic work teach us to take truth, goodness, and beauty where we find them. They are not always found where we look for them: often they are hidden in the dirt or are in the keeping of the dragon.”
“The impetus that makes you fly is our great human possession. Everybody has it. It is the feeling of being linked with the roots of power, but one soon becomes afraid of this feeling ... That is why most people shed their wings and prefer to walk and obey the law.”
“This state of inner attunement is not always joyful or serene ... Sometimes it involves feeling with devastating intensity the conflicts, the rages, the intimations of mortality we have been trying to deny ... Yearnings, rages, jealousies, dependencies, and estrangements can be safely lived through when the persons upon whom we might wrongly (or dangerously, or foolishly) unleash them are absent.”
Plato's chariot allegory of the tripartite soul
Plato pictures the soul as a charioteer (reason) governing two horses (spirited thumos and appetitive desire); only when reason harmonises all three into one unified, self-controlled person should one turn outward to wealth, bodily care, politics, or business.
The daimonic passions
Rollo May defines the daimonic as any natural drive (sex, love, anger, rage, desire for power) able to take over the whole person. Amoral in themselves, they enliven us when integrated or turn demonic when suppressed.