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A Library Guide to Jung's Collected Works

Explore Jungian psychology resources available from the Pacifica Graduate Library

Reference publications: Shadow

Jung on the Shadow archetype

Jung's essays on the Shadow archetype from the Collected Works:

Suggested readings adapted from Hopcke's (1999) A guided tour of the collected works of C. G. Jung, pp. 83-87.

Additional resources on the Shadow

Butler, J. (2016). Gnawing at the roots: Toward a transpersonal poetics of guilt and death. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 35(2), 51–60.
Abstract: As an imaginal approach, archetypal psychology focuses its attention on the diverse and polysemous expressions of imagination as the ground from which all psychological expressions emerge, replacing the dried up concept of a singular ego with the notion that consciousness takes up a multitude of styles concordant with the mercurial flow of images that concentrically influence, grip down, and take over consciousness like a band of pirates commandeering a ship. Archetypal psychology situates itself as a transpersonal psychology by qualifying the image as inextricably archetypal, denoting a valence of meaning that extends beyond the merely personal, beyond the particular cultural-historical situation, pointing toward a pattern that has persisted in the cultural and personal heritage of humanity since time immemorial. After a brief introduction to some of the primary ideas of archetypal psychology, this paper explores the Criminal as an archetypal image, complex, and shadow projection that has been culturally disavowed and expressed through the brutality of systemic racism. The paper concludes with an example of the transformation of this image through the psychological functions of guilt and death.

      Open access

Brewster, F. (2019). Childhood innocence: Racial prejudice and the shaping of psychological complexes. Psychological Perspectives, 62(2), 164–175.
This article examines C. G. Jung’s theory of complexes in consideration of ethnicity, racism, and African American culture with a focus on the development of the racial complex within Africanist children. The intention of the exploration of a particular complex identified as a racial complex is to bring into a broader Jungian psychology a discussion of the possibility of increased conscious awareness that supports identification of, and engagement with, the influences of such a complex operative on the individual and group cultural levels. A section of this article reviews American slavery and shadow as archetypes capable of causing constellations that impact on human behaviors, that have promoted racism within American societal structures for centuries. The trauma of the racial complex is reviewed within an Africanist cultural context. Trauma, emotions, and archetypal energy, as shown through racial interactions, are discussed as parts of a racial complex and explored as features of intergenerational cultural trauma. The discussion of the article centers on exploring how ethnicity can create childhood trauma that leads to the psychological development of an Africanist racial complex.

      PsycINFO

Casement, A. (2003). Encountering the shadow in rites of passage: A study in activations. The Journal of Analytical Psychology, 48(1), 29–46.
Abstract: Jung’s concept of the shadow is explored in this paper through his writings on its realization and assimilation in which he says the shadow may be experienced as the regressed and denied “other self” in each individual. However, this is not the whole picture, and he also points to the fact that the shadow contains more than something merely negative. While in no way treating them as “patients”, the paper will also touch on the experience of the anthropologist, Bronislaw Malinowski, and the writer, Joseph Conrad, in their personal encounters with the shadow. All three encountered the shadow whilst going through rites of passage of their own and each owes much to the Romantic Movement. In this context, attention is directed to the writings of the philosopher and theologian, Johann Gottfried von Herder, who discovered a deeper understanding of his destiny in the course of a sea voyage.

      PsycINFO

Cremen, S. N. (2019). Vocation as psyche’s call: A depth psychological perspective on the emergence of calling through symptoms at midlife.. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 19(1), 41–61.
Abstract: Vocation, as distinct from career, is not something one chooses but something to which one is called. Bringing a depth psychological perspective to debates around calling, I argue that surrendering the ego or personal will into a relationship with the unconscious psyche allows one’s calling to emerge. Using a hybrid qualitative approach drawing on hermeneutics and incorporating interviews with midlife adults, the research shows how calling can arise through darkness, disruption and trouble, paralleling a process of initiation in traditional cultures. Applications of Jungian concepts including psyche, shadow, persona and individuation are discussed. Vocational research and practice implications are raised.

      PsycINFO

Naifeh, K. H. (2019). Encountering the other: The white shadow. Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche, 13(2), 7–19.
Abstract: In spite of Jung’s encounter with the spirit of the depths that he describes in The Red Book and his reverence for other cultures, he remained, in some ways, very much a man held by the spirit of the times in which he lived. Eurocentrism, even unconscious patronizing racism, is evident in Jung’s writings. This article asks how, due to the impact of the spirit of the times on us, do we unconsciously express attitudes, writings, and actions that are offensive to the other? There are embedded forms of racism and thereby oppression that members of the dominant group learn not to see, to keep in the shadows. What forces keep unconscious racial bias alive and active in our societies? One answer lies in a culture’s shadow. This article utilizes writings of Jung and post-Jungians, such as Kimbles, Singer, and Brewster, as well as examples from philosophy, relational psychoanalysis, film, and literature that depict culture’s shadow. The relationship of culture’s shadow to Jung’s “geology” of the personality as diagrammed in one of his 1925 lectures is explored as is the connection of culture’s shadow to archetypal evil and to the formation of negative cultural complexes. These explorations are directed toward new ways of understanding the creation and maintenance of the sense of other in the psyche, furthering the work of bringing culture’s shadow into consciousness..

       Taylor & Francis