The role of your shadow in research

I don’t really have a shadow today. It’s overcast, threatening rain, and generally very dull. Then I think about this person or that, and this thing or that that they did. I am critical that they have misunderstood me or laughed at something I didn’t find funny or too stupid to see that I am right in my opinions.

On this dull day, my shadow stretches long. Goes before me, announcing my presence as if I am sneaking up on someone at sunset during the long days of summer.

Let’s consider our shadow from a Jungian perspective. Jung says

‘By shadow I mean the “negative” side of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide together with the insufficiently developed functions and the contents of the personal unconscious.’¹

I tell myself that I do not have Jungian shadow. I am nice person. I try not to lie. I don’t steal on purpose. And I don’t kill unless I have to and then I feel bad and apologise that there seems to be no other way forward (spiders are just not supposed to live inside!).

Yet Jung tells me that ‘Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is’.² I am reminded of times I have been entirely pleasant to someone’s face, only to denigrate them in my mind or, worse, behind their back.

This is where it gets interesting.

Jung continues ‘But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected, and is liable to burst forth suddenly in a moment of unawareness’³. I am guilty of suddenly becoming highly irritated and saying the wrong thing. And I have been the recipient of someone else’s unfair barbs, leaving me to wonder what I did to deserve such censure. It is here that the shadow takes another turn.

‘Although, with insight and good will, the shadow can to some extent be assimilated into the conscious personality, experience shows that there are certain features which offer the most obstinate resistance to moral control and prove almost impossible to influence. These resistances are usually bound up with projections, which are not recognised as such, and their recognition is a moral achievement beyond the ordinary. While some traits peculiar to the shadow can be recognised without too much difficulty as one’s own personal qualities, in this case both insight and good will are unavailing because the cause of the emotion appears to lie, beyond all possibility of doubt, in the other person.’⁴

What this is saying is that we can see our own faults. I sure do love chocolate and couch surfing, and it is not always a good thing! And I can see your faults. Those ten cups of coffee each day probably aren’t that great for you. But we are friends and I am patient and tolerant of these faults. They are even a bit endearing and I love you for them.

Projecting our own shadow, however, is not patient, fond or indulgent. When I label another person as intolerant, ignorant or a fool, I am no longer looking at their faults. I am projecting my shadow.

I listened to a lecture once wherein the lecturer felt the need to straighten us out. At first I felt condemned as if I had done something terribly wrong that I did not know about. But as he continued I began to see that he was lecturing us about his own faults and frustrations and not ours. He was projecting his shadow onto us. This lecturer never did grow to like us and, I am sure, felt we were quite the lost cause by the end. It’s sad, really, that he never addressed this in himself.

So, how does this impact your research?

There will be times that you will come across information that will bother you. I don’t mean things that cause you to want to make the world a better place. I’m talking about things that will irritate you or, more obviously, provide you with evidence that disproves part of your thesis.

This has happened to me twice now. I’ve been so unsettled by something that it has impacted my ability to write on it. Of course, there is the added complication of my own trauma being triggered, but this, too, is part of projecting the shadow.

The first time was when I came across a theorist that I felt disempowered abuse victims. The second time was a collection of poetry that very subtly threw me off my game. When I made the time to reflect on what was happening, I could see that the poet had provided evidence for what my least favourite theorist had argued. The theorist has a point and, no, it turns out she isn’t disempowering abuse victims but pointing out further difficulties.

I am used to facing the shadow of my trauma. We’ve had a few knock-down fights along the way but I have learned how to identify this part of my shadow quickly and face it with whatever support I may need (a movie, a night out with friends, a visit to the therapist).

The part of my shadow I am not so familiar with, is the “I’m right” part. You see, I could have ignored the evidence that proves a theory I don’t really like (and have been secretly seeking to disprove) or, as I did, I could address the prideful part of my shadow and decide that truthful research is more important to me than being “right”.

Being right doesn’t wear the same clothes as other parts of our shadow. Take a look under her coat and see that she is wearing pride. And under that, fear. It’s an ugly outfit.

The thing is, there’s nothing to fear in being wrong. It just means that you didn’t have all of the information at the start.

In fact, being wrong is what’s known in research circles as ‘discovering something’.

I highly recommend the book Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche by Robert A Johnson (1993). Johnson proposes that our greatest potential can, in fact, be found in our shadow. I tend to agree with him.

1. Jung, C, (1983), The Essential Jung, Fontana, London, p. 87.
2. ibid. p. 88.
3. ibid. p. 88.
4. ibid. pp. 91-2.