what does Carl Jung mean when he talks about the “Shadow Self”
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The shadow self usually refers to the hidden parts of our personality that we reject either because we find them repulsive or because society does and we are ashamed. As a person with a Bachelor’s in psychology I do have to say there is not a lot of evidence for this mainly because in the modern form it’s not testable and in the original Jungian form it doesn’t appear to be true. If you need I can edit this with references that will help if needed.
Don’t understand it completely enough to explain, but I’ve had some experience with it. It’s the parts of you (especially subconscious parts) that you’re not aware of.
Example: my girlfriend thinks she isn’t mean and doesn’t get angry. Proceeds to say something mean, I call her out on it, she’d reply ‘huh, I didn’t say it like that/I said xyz’.
Your brain will literally filter out your memory and experience to what you think you are. So her shadow self would be her ‘mean’ self that she denies existence.
Personal example; I truly thought I was a nice guy and didn’t get angry, however after confrontations I’d get wild thoughts of revenge fantasies, ranging from ‘I wish I said this to win the argument’ to ‘I should have broken his nose in front of his friends, that would have taught him a lesson and showed them how strong I am’.
Then in similar fashion to previous example my brain filters this out from who I truly think I am, a nice guy, and doesn’t input it into the equation of Me.
To deal with this I took a good look at my fantasies and thoughts and saw the things I had been repressing into ‘my shadow’, specifically anger, I thought it was a weakness but I realised I had to integrate it back into my conscious arsenal. I’m sure I still have things tucked into my shadow that are causing me grief for not properly integrating them, but I will have to learn the stupid way by seeing what error codes pop up after the fact!
Hope this was useful, just my take on it
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