Writings on the Shadow by Toni Wolff
Writings on the Shadow by Toni Wolff Edited and translated from German by Katerina Sarafidou
The individuation process is the empirical realisation of psychic totality.
Individuality is the inseparable structural unity of the individual. Individuation is the conscious realisation of this unity and the resulting integration of the ego into the totality of one’s psychological conditions, i.e., into that aspect of the totality that is constellated in a given psychological moment. Individuality exists a priori, but unconsciously.
The unconscious components of psychic totality therefore appear in and through the outer object.
Individuation is a process of differentiation that releases the projected psychic material from its identity with the outer object and integrates it into the subject.
In this way, the individual becomes conscious of its structural wholeness.
Individuation strives for a living cooperation of all psychic factors.
Its purpose is none other than to free the self from the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand and the suggestive power of unconscious images on the other.
The images of the collective unconscious were not discovered by complex psychology.
On the contrary, they are evident in the form of mythical and religious symbols, from primordial times until the most differentiated religions of the present time.
As such, however, they were never understood as psychological images, i.e., as images through which the life and essence of the psyche could be expressed.
Even when great poets and artists draw their material from this inner world of experience, this is not seen as an experience of the objective psyche, but rather they are understood as aesthetically motivated without any reference to the creative subject within and to the universality of their content.
Complex psychology, however, brings two new facts: an experience and a recognition.
On the one hand, the psychic image is experienced as a primordial phenomenon, not in a form that has been processed and fixed by consciousness, but as it emerges directly from the psyche’s substance.
It is therefore neither aesthetically, nor intellectually, nor in any other way differentiated – it is of iridescent form and manifold meaning.
The unconscious image is a seed, grown on the soul’s primordial ground, the imagination which, before the differentiation of the psychological functions (thinking and feeling, intuition and sensation, extraversion and introversion), is brought together in a symbol which is the basis for the conscious mind in terms of substance, content, form, and idea.
On the other hand, these germinal images are not of an aesthetic or intellectual nature.
Rather, they concern the human being directly.
They have grown in his soul, emerged from his most subjective life, from his various personal conflicts.
They are his psychological drama, they are beings from his psyche, indeed they are the essence of the psyche itself.
They are the Also-I of the human being, the Other in him that makes him whole.
They are the mediators who realise the autonomous life of the psyche.
Through the effect of these objective psychic contents on consciousness, a state is created in which man begins to experiment with his being, where nothing is given forever, and nothing is hopelessly fossilized.
This is also a state in which there is no longer absolute certainty, but everything is in a process of becoming and is therefore more or less relative.
By complementing the consciousness of the present through the integration of the collective unconscious, an expanded consciousness emerges that has historical continuity.
But when ego-consciousness, as the highest peak of the
spirit of the times, collides with the spirit of the collective unconscious of humanity, the latter is awakened and transformed from the shadowy and unchanging state of mere psychic being that contains its general essence, and reveals to this one individual in this one moment, through the most personal experience, the unique meaning of his life.1
The individuation process in this specific form has two preconditions that can set it in motion.
One is psychological analysis, and the other a life situation
that demands the total engagement of the human being.
Both preconditions require a certain maturity in life and the necessary fulfilment of the normal responsibilities of adaptation.
Common to both, however, is the indispensable criterion of the psychological relationship to another person: one who is objectively confronted with the problem, i.e., who is not himself involved in it.
In the case of analysis, this is the professional psychologist,
whereas in the case of a specific life situation, it is a person who has had experience of the objective psyche and therefore possesses the necessary psychological knowledge.
The relation to the Other is therefore indispensable because the Other represents the particular human reality with respect to the autonomous process of the psyche, and thereby enables the subject to grasp and differentiate its own function of human relatedness.
Only by preserving the integrity of this relatedness can an objective standpoint be guaranteed vis-à-vis the collective psyche.
Jung calls the method of psychological analysis a dialectical procedure – a dialogue or a confrontation between two people. A person is, in the sense of dialectics, a psychic system which, in the case of an influence on another person, interacts with another psychic system.
In the field of a dialectical procedure, the doctor must step out of his anonymity and give an account of himself, just as he himself asks the same from his patient.
The dialectical procedure alone does justice to the individuality of the individual.
It is a complete renunciation of theories and practices in favour
of an attitude that is as unprejudiced as possible. The therapist is no longer an acting subject, but a co-experiencer of an individual process of development.
Under all circumstances, the supreme rule of a dialectical procedure is that the individuality of the patient has the same value and right to exist as that of the doctor, and therefore all individual developments in the patient are to be regarded as valid, unless they self-correct.
Another source of the dialectical procedure is the fact of the multiple interpretabilities of the symbolic expressions of the psyche.
The individuality of the patient ultimately decides the interpretation.
The individual relationship to the psychologist is the preliminary stage of the individual’s attitude towards other people and the outside world in general – a task that begins with psychological analysis, but can only be solved in the real world, just as the integration of the symbols of the autonomous process of the psyche also requires full realisation in life.
Psychological analysis only provides the means by which the relationship to the total psyche can be recognised and experienced.
With the constellation of new problems later on, new unconscious contents will be activated, because the fullness of the human being is only lived to the end when one dies.
When the unconscious psyche is activated, its contents are projected onto a human object, through which the most difficult entanglements and most violent shocks arise. Everything that is constellated in the psyche but left in
an unconscious state because of inertia, inattention, or fear acquires energetic intensity and effectiveness and, when the subject dissociates itself from it, it migrates into the environment and into those objects with which it has strongly connected, in line with the law of least resistance.
As a result, other people are also affected by it and may even be forced to play the role of an aspect of the soul that has been delegated to them.
Other people then suffer the effects that the subject avoids.
It is therefore clear that, when it comes to human relationships, it is paramount that the “participation mystique” with fellow human beings is eliminated as far as possible and that the psychic contents represented by the Other are integrated into the subject.
Only after the object of projections has been separated from the projections themselves can it become clear whether the object was only a receptacle for subjective content or whether the projection was based on the necessity for a more complete, i.e., individual relationship.
Therefore, resistance to psychological insight is often based not only on one’s reluctance to see oneself clearly, but also on the fear of depriving the object of its value by withdrawing the projections.
The individual meaning of the object, however, is a question of fate that is not at the discretion of the persons in question. Having a soul is a hazard of life.
The integration of the unconscious psyche that takes place through the individuation process does not produce a state of unrelatedness and impenetrable isolation – rather, it is the basis for a more unconditional connectedness than that which is possible through the mere superficial connections of the superior functions and the persona attitude.
The inferior functions can only be differentiated relatively and therefore always retain the property of their relation to the collective psyche.
This gives a more total and natural connection to humanity as a whole: a conscious and experienced participation, which consists both in influencing others and suffering the influence of others on one’s own individual character.
The experience of the objective psyche is bound to the most banal and lowest point of passage, which involves taking seriously one’s own most subjective and personal facts.
The soul is only experienced by those who do not bypass themselves.
The psychic object which man first encounters in his inner world is the figure of the Shadow.
The Shadow is always of the same sex as the subject but of an essentially different nature than the ego.
It is the ego’s dark reflection.
Shadow is that which does not stand in the light of consciousness and which cannot ascend to the heights of conscious achievement because it partakes of the inadequacy, tragedy, and evil inherent in human nature.
The Shadow contains all the values that stand in opposition to the values of the ego.
It has a morally and spiritually inferior quality and, moreover, it does not accord to the spirit of the times as the ego does; all kinds of remnants of the near and distant past cling to the Shadow.
In so far as human nature participates in universal qualities, the collective psyche contains the possibilities of all the highs and lows of humanity.
The Shadow is always on the other side, where the ego is not.
It is the alter ego, the “I” which I also am, not in the world of my individual consciousness, but in the world of the total psychic reality.
The Shadow is not identical in value with the ego and making it conscious does not take away any of the ego’s qualities; rather, these are augmented beyond the personal and time-bound to the universally human.
Just as the persona contains everything corresponding to external collective values that one wants to be and to represent toward oneself and toward others, so does the Shadow include everything that belongs to the collective human nature, but which one rejects for moral, aesthetic, intellectual, or other reasons.
It contains these qualities which one does not allow to emerge because they do not correspond to conscious principles and because they appear impractical or nonsensical.
For this reason, the Shadow’s activity is often like a trickster that surprises and frightens one with the most unexpected and unpleasant pranks.
It is at work there, where one lets oneself go, where one appears stupid, where one catches oneself being spiteful, or where one discovers to one’s own horror egotistical motives in an ostensibly selfless act and petty criticism in a noble sentiment.
The Shadow is the dark brother that accompanies the ego everywhere, it is the Other in us that also wants to live with us so that we can be whole.
It is always where the ego is not. If the ego is above, the Shadow is below.
If the ego is capable, the Shadow is unreliable.
If we are modern in temperament, the Shadow is old-fashioned. If we are conservative, it is rebellious.
The Shadow does not compensate for the one-sided conscious attitude, but is complementary to our functional personality, which can only ever be a section of the collective, a particular variant of humanity.
If we are one thing, the Shadow is another, it is half of our basic mirror image that lies in the background.
If we are aware of this and allow it to live with us, we are
able to tread the middle way and thus do justice to the paradoxical nature of the psyche.
For when we give ourselves truly and unconditionally to a given situation, the Shadow is also there in everything that we are and everything that we do.
And if we are tolerant enough to recognise this “neighbour” in us and to give him his necessary rights, we understand not only our own nature, but also the nature of the Other, much better than if we had elevated ourselves above him.
Then, the Other does not need to assert himself violently against us.
The integration of the Shadow is the beginning of a detached and objective attitude towards one’s own personality.
The Shadow appears in dreams and fantasies as a socially, morally, or spiritually dark and inferior figure.
It is an archetype that also plays a major role in the psychology of primitive cultures.
There the Shadow is concretised as a functional, separate element of the individual personality.
One should therefore not step on someone else’s Shadow as this would violate the integrity of their personality, i.e., one would have a magical effect on them.
The fate of the human being who loses his Shadow and thus his humanity was symbolised by Chamisso in “Peter Schlemihl”.2 But there are also people for whom the opposite happens, i.e., the ego mistakes itself for the Shadow and then takes on the role of the Shadow in the real world.
These are the unlucky ones, for whom nothing flourishes and who stumble from one misfortune to another.
For some reason they have fallen into the reverse, Shadow side of the psyche and therefore have no proper relationship either to the outside world or to themselves.
They blame themselves for all misfortune and are complicit in every evil act.
They live in reality, what should be experienced in psychic space.
Something similar happens in the individuation process through the encounter with the Shadow.
The Shadow has a personal and an impersonal side, half of which belongs to the ego and half of which is a content of the collective psyche.
The two sides, however, are not separate – on the contrary, they are indistinguishably fused.
Furthermore, the archetype of the Shadow is intertwined with all other archetypes that lie behind it.
Only the influence of consciousness distinguishes the various figures and components of the Shadow, which in their unconscious state are experienced only in their intense effectiveness.
The differentiation of the Shadow occurs through the ego’s most acute self-evaluation that allows it to become aware of its own nature.
Through this process, the Shadow as an archetypal figure is delimited, but its effectiveness is not thereby nullified; rather, it can now unfold and be related to for the first time.
The Shadow mediates experiences that place the ego in symbolic situations of a collective character, insofar as these lie on the actual Shadow side.
They are experiences of darkness and evil, experiences of the inferior human, of the ugliest parts of humanity.
It is everything that the human being also is when he is not human, but human beast. I, as a person in my conscious being, am not that, but I, as a universal human being, am that too.
Through the recognition of the Shadow, the individual is confronted with his own polarity.
The archetypal part of the Shadow leads the individual
further into his inner opposite and thus into the oppositional nature of the unconscious in general.
When consciousness fulfils its natural function of orienting itself towards external reality, man creates an image of the world and of himself.
If this image is to be in any way accurate, this will depend on whether the individual knows himself sufficiently so as not to falsify that image; for all illusions, all desires, all that is feared, all that is not assimilated into the subject, is then projected onto the world and becomes the ground not only for thought but also for action.
And as long as one sees the good and the bad only on the outside and expects the necessary changes from the outside,
one is not yet psychologically mature, because one does not make oneself responsible.
Psychic reality imposes itself precisely on those individuals who fulfil the standard of external conformity, competence, common sense, and awareness of things given in reality.
Consequently, the compensatory function of the psyche here does not consist in accentuating these values, but in a kind of relativization of them by demonstrating its own reality as
a counterweight: the inner subjective becomes as effective as the outer objective, the unreal as convincing as the concrete, and the fantastic as illuminating as the rational.
It is precisely when consciousness carries out its function with full commitment, when it really grasps what is objectively given and actually realises what is concretely real, that it reaches its own limits, for then man engages with his whole being.
The whole, however, is alien to him and must be alien to him, for it is new and sacrificial psychic life which is only beginning to become.
Thus, the way is wide open for all the subjectivism and the fantasy operation of the psyche.
It is the irrational that could devour concrete reality, and it is the danger of all primeval instinctiveness.
It is psychic nature that threatens to dissolve cultured consciousness.
It comes to life when consciousness fulfils its own task and when it has no forms with which to grasp the operations of the psyche.
It is a psychic law that what the individual fears most or is unconsciously threatened by, becomes his fate.
In that which frightens him lies his weakness, his sore spot, and perhaps also the seed of transformation.
Human strength is the psychological place where one decides and acts from his I.
Human weakness is the place where one suffers and where things happen to him.
In strength, one relies on himself; he is consciously differentiated from others and willingly drawn to them.
In weakness, he is dependent, variable, and subject to transformation, inevitably influenced by external and internal factors.
Strength and weakness together make the whole man, the man as he really is.
It is so much nobler to help the other and it is also so much more comfortable, for one can thereby bypass the Other in oneself.
But now one discovers that the demand to love one’s neighbour as oneself depends on a presupposition whose meaning one had taken far too superficially, for one does not love oneself at all. One is perhaps in love with oneself or with certain qualities. Love, however, is not only a feeling or an emotion but an
attitude, and it presupposes the whole person, “with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my strength and with all my mind”.
Christianity has brought to the awareness of Western culture the inestimable value of the inalienability and uniqueness of the human soul.
But how can I appreciate and understand the soul of the other if I do not know my own soul? I am blind to both.
I must see myself as I am and stand by myself as I am.
I cannot become other than what my psychic structure has marked out for me; I cannot get away from myself; I can only fulfil myself and be responsible for myself.
No one can take this responsibility from me, no one can live my life, and no one can do for me what I myself must do, create and suffer.
I cannot delegate to others what I want to achieve, and I cannot make others the cause of my own inadequacy.
I cannot blindly love or blindly hate others, for I must
know why I love or hate them and what part of myself I am imposing on them.
I must know why I have this or that conviction and I must account for the fact that any conviction can only be subjective; I must know to what extent my subjectivity is legitimate and to what extent it merely contains my unacknowledged self.
This realisation does not make me any better but only a little more aware and honest, and possibly a little more tolerant of what is different and foreign.
In so far as I am human towards myself, I can also be human towards others.
By experiencing the deviations and aberrations of my nature, it is possible for me to trust natural development without trying to bend something into shape with a rational argument or with an instinctive defence.
I have to realise that I can only overcome what I have previously accepted, and I have to realise that the irrational and the evil also exist because I have experienced them in my own depths.
To the extent that an individual is brought by this fate to the experience of his inner chaos, he experiences the objective psychic law.
Not as advice and guidance, but as an event and as a dark suggestion that must be grasped by the conscious mind and whose validity or dubiousness can only be proven through life’s venture.
From the experience of psychic law comes the realisation that nothing is absolute and that everything also has its opposite side and countermovement.
The yes is followed by a no and the no by a yes, the morning by an evening, the ascent by a descent, and the downfall by a renewal.
The solidity and uniformity of consciousness are just as real as the diversity and non-differentiation of psychic nature; willing and deciding are just as necessary as allowing something to grow and letting things happen.
The eternal images slumbering in the soul require all our efforts to be awakened into redemptive form, and yet this happens not by doing and willing, but by grace.
Psychic reality is change and movement, relativity and polarity. And yet it only becomes real for me through my unequivocal commitment, only by renouncing everything provisional and inauthentic, and through the unconditional affirmation of the here and now.
The smallest and most everyday things are important if the greater things are to last, and only from the complete engagement with the most personal does the impersonal arise.
Spirit is only generative when it permeates even the most banal everyday life, and culture is more than mere civilization when it not only dominates nature but also contains and shapes it.
I am rooted in my own being and yet inseparable from the world and immersed in it in such a way that everything that escapes my external experience of the world meets me in my inner reflection, so that I can grasp it as a whole, for only in this way can I myself become a whole.
I am responsible for myself and completely on my own, and yet I experience my being as it is only in obligatory solidarity with others.
The people who are the closest and most real to me and whose essence is open to me are also the bearers of a mystery and a fulness of meaning that I cannot interpret.
I gain the Self only by becoming fully myself – and I can never experience myself unless I recognize that it is very little my own and that others are included in it.
Thus, the experience of psychic reality gives rise to a certain view of life.
It is not philosophy, for it explains neither the world nor the spirit, and it is not religion, for it knows nothing about the metaphysical.
At the most, it can be called a certain philosophical attitude based on psychic facts that have been proven reliable and valid. Alternatively, it can be called a religious attitude, insofar as the human being has experienced that the ego is not the last instance of itself, but that it is entangled in helpful and destructive powers which reach beyond its capacity and comprehension and to which it must expose itself.
The reality of the psyche is a paradox in every respect.
It confronts man with the task of knowledge and experience at the same time, for neither is sufficient without the other.
It shows him that his being is nature and spirit, individual and collective, present, past, and future, and that fate always
happens simultaneously both outside and inside; that the individual must both intervene and let things happen; that he is I and not-I at the same time.
The realisation of psychic reality leads man honestly to draw the ethical consequences of conscious insight and, thus, he gets in opposition with himself and into an endless conflict where all movement stands still, where he is crucified between his own yes and no, between his I and everything that is Also-I and yet this is the only way that life is fully lived and individuality is realised. Toni Wolff, Jung’s Shadow Concept, Page 308-316
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