The Persona & Shadow
“The persona is a complicated system of relations between individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual.”
— Carl Jung, C.W. Vol. 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology
The Persona
In each public area, we gift an exaggerated model of ourselves which we are hoping will make an impression. The man or woman we show in our career isn’t similar to at home. When by myself we haven’t anyone to impress, however in public we put on a mask, a personality, in order that we’d impose a perfect photo of ourselves onto others. Every career has diffused agreements approximately the manners which might be acceptable, and people which aren’t; and it’s miles anticipated that the man or woman will adapt to those necessities without every person having to brazenly give an explanation for them. A physician, for instance, is anticipated to act as a physician should, with persistence and sympathy that could be tough for a normal man or woman to achieve; any propensity for impatience or hostility could now no longer be acceptable and for the exact reason.
It is then the awesome reason of the personality to subdue all the primitive urges, impulses, and feelings that aren’t taken into consideration socially acceptable, and that, if we have been to behave upon them, could make us appearance fools. Anyone with any feeling in any respect sees thru the façade; however, we ever take part in pretending that everyone that is real, in order that society may keep on as normal. The problem with the personality arises simplest while one will become so carefully recognized together along with his function that he loses all feeling of self. At this factor the harm is simply done: he can be totally blind to any difference between himself and the sector wherein he lives. The end result of an inflated personality, Jung warned, is a `shallow, brittle, conformist form of character which is `all personality`, with its immoderate problem for `what humans think.` Such someone will sacrifice himself for the needs of others without limit — now no longer due to the fact he’s a saint, however, due to the fact he does now no longer have the braveness to refuse and bear conflict.
The Shadow
If not anything else, the personality is obedience to expectations; it’s miles the masks one wears to persuade himself, and others, that he isn’t always an altogether terrible person. But one can not cross past the personality till he has included into his person the darker person developments which belong to what Jung referred to as the `shadow self`. The shadow is the whole thing that we’ve denied in ourselves and solid into oblivion, or instead of the whole thing that the ego has refused to partner with itself, however, that we will note in different people — such matters may consist of our sexuality, spontaneity, aggression, instincts, cowardice, carelessness, passion, enthusiasm, love of cloth possessions. It embraces all the one's sins, darkish thoughts, and moods for which we felt guilt and shame.
The shadow is always emotional in nature, for it has to oppose the rigidness of the ego; it holds its personal autonomy and becomes independent from the aware mind. Therefore, in being instinctive and irrational, the shadow is liable to mental projection, wherein we characteristic to others all our evil and inferior traits that we do now no longer need to confess are in ourselves. `A guy who’s subconscious of himself`, Jung writes, `acts in a blind, instinctive manner and is similarly fooled with the aid of using all of the illusions that get up while he sees the whole thing that he isn’t always aware of in himself coming to satisfy him from out of doors as projections upon his neighbour.` (The Philosophical Tree, web page 335.) When we understand an ethical deficiency in others we may be certain there’s comparable inferiority inside ourselves. `If you feel`, Von Franz writes, `an amazing rage developing in you while a pal reproaches you approximately a fault, you could be pretty certain that at this factor you may locate part of your shadow, of that you are subconscious.` If we take a look at our resentment toward ourselves and others, and if we recollect the ethical factors of our behaviour, then we have the possibility to deliver the shadow into consciousness and attain a renewed feeling of power and independence.
Stay on the Road !
