Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature

Although I personally do not see this as a book for those who are still actively dealing with panic traumas (particularly related to childhood abuses), this book is extremely useful, in many chapters, for working through the details of getting to the bottom of the traumas and less severe but nonetheless hurtful events of earlier life. I found in particular those excercises for finding and dealing with Shadow projections to be potentially helpful, if rather difficult, and useful. This is a book that bears re-reading with pen in hand, and going back through one's journals while working on the excercises.

(I found this book on my landlady's book shelf just after my therapist mentioned that being emotionally exhausted and wanting to give up show more was a by-product of running, with the Shadow ever on my heels, from those very parts of me that need to be acknowledged and integrated/accepted).

Comme dit-on en français, bon courage ! (The phrase that comes strongly to mind here is what the French say: courage, which means both courage or bravery, but also in this case, may the work go well, as it will clearly not be easy...) show less

Although I personally do not see this as a book for those who are still actively dealing with panic traumas (particularly related to childhood abuses), this book is extremely useful, in many chapters, for working through the details of getting to the bottom of the traumas and less severe but nonetheless hurtful events of earlier life. I found in particular those excercises for finding and dealing with Shadow projections to be potentially helpful, if rather difficult, and useful. This is a book that bears re-reading with pen in hand, and going back through one's journals while working on the excercises.

(I found this book on my landlady's book shelf just after my therapist mentioned that being emotionally exhausted and wanting to give up show more was a by-product of running, with the Shadow ever on my heels, from those very parts of me that need to be acknowledged and integrated/accepted).

Comme dit-on en français, bon courage ! (The phrase that comes strongly to mind here is what the French say: courage, which means both courage or bravery, but also in this case, may the work go well, as it will clearly not be easy...) show less

Zweig, former executive editor of Brain/Mind Bulletin, and Abrams, a Jungian therapist, offer a provocative collection of more than 60 brief pieces (most of them extracts from longer works) exploring the "shadow," the part of the unconscious self that a conscious mind sees as undesirable and tries to define as the "other." Christine Downing considers how a person might project the shadow self onto a same-sex sibling, while Maggie Scarf describes the ways in which husbands and wives can do the same thing: one spouse, for instance, expressing anger for the spouse who shuns the hostile feelings, turning an "intrapsychic problem" into "interpersonal conflict." Jerome S. Bernstein looks at this phenomenon in collective terms: the U.S. sees show more its darker self in the Soviet Union and vice versa. Many of the contributors note the dangers of ignoring one's own shadow, and the volume concludes with texts that discuss ways of coming to terms with it. Ken Wilber suggests that people should try to recognize and play out aspects of their rejected selves in order to heal "the split between persona and cap is correct/pk Shadow." show less

Essayists from Jung to Bly examine the dark side, both on an individual and collective level.This is a book that can be re-read throughout one's life to gain greater insight into the shadow side and to diffuse threats to global peace.