In an interview, Marchiano discusses how Jung defined shadow, why we all have one and the reasons behind people's renewed interest in the concept.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What is the shadow self?

If it's referring to Jung's concept of the shadow, I will say that he didn't use the term "shadow self." He talked about the shadow.

The shadow is the part of ourselves that we've disowned. Jung once said the shadow is everything we don't want to be. It's something that we think that we're not. "Oh, we're not like that." "I'm not like that." Well, actually, we are like that, we just don't have a conscious relationship with those parts of ourselves. But we could, and that's the really constructive part about getting curious about shadow.

Is it a fundamental idea in Jungian psychology?

Jung had so many insights that have entered everyday parlance. Shadow is one of them but also synchronicity, introversion and extroversion, the collective unconscious. But shadow is certainly a fundamental idea of Jung's. He felt that doing shadow work was really the first part of the work of analysis and the work of what he called individuation because it's the entry point into the depths.

Does everyone have a shadow?

In Jungian theory we all have a shadow and it's made up of two components. There's a personal shadow and then there's the collective shadow. To keep things simple I'll talk mostly about the personal shadow.

Where do our shadows come from?

...continued

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.