shadow

As the name suggests, the shadow is the unconscious dark side of the personality. There are elements of the personal unconscious that are developed within an individual’s lifetime as well as aspects of a collective unconscious made up of archetypes from the primordial past.

Without analyzing the shadow directly, we will project its qualities onto others – the qualities that we most dislike within ourselves. To truly evolve, one must integrate their shadow and balance it with their Persona. According to Jung, the dissolution of the persona and working to understand one’s own shadow is crucial to the process of individuation or self-actualization.