Hi everyone, We’re going to go a bit mystical bullshit ahem weird niche psychotherapy this week, because I’ve been having fun with shadow work recently and wanted something easy to write. What is the Shadow? The Shadow is a concept from Jungian psychology and roughly means “the parts of our personalities we hide from ourselves”. If you’re not familiar with Jung, he was basically a mystic cosplaying as a psychologist, and as a result often ends up being
I appreciate the sharing of your thoughtful exploration of shadow work. Carolyn Elliott's Existential Kink should not be considered source material, though. Or maybe you're just referring to your sources for this particular inquiry? There are so many more reputable sources on depth psychology and shadow work out there. Like Jung himself, or Marion Woodman and Robert A. Johnson. Carolyn Elliott is like the Wikipedia of sources on shadow work. She clumsily slapped the BDSM/kink part onto depth psychology and elements of it are really off and incongruent. Don't be fooled by her PhD - which has nothing to do with psychology, analytic or otherwise - or the fact that she's been published. It's like a new age, witch craft publishing house.
Yeah, she's not a source material in the sense that I take anything she writes as remotely canonical, she's just part of how I got into the topic (which I mostly learned from talking to other people, I'm a bit behind on my formal reading on it). Apologies if I didn't make that clear in the article.
That being said, I'm aware that her book is mostly nonsense, but I found it surprisingly useful nonsense, so I've got a soft spot for it!
Thanks for the clarification! Yes, her exercises are useful to get your feet wet with shadow work and inner work in general. I just wish that the masses could be introduced to the work by someone more properly trained and less of an occult charismatic whack. Ironically that's perhaps how some people viewed Jung in the past. He's since become canonical!
I appreciate the sharing of your thoughtful exploration of shadow work. Carolyn Elliott's Existential Kink should not be considered source material, though. Or maybe you're just referring to your sources for this particular inquiry? There are so many more reputable sources on depth psychology and shadow work out there. Like Jung himself, or Marion Woodman and Robert A. Johnson. Carolyn Elliott is like the Wikipedia of sources on shadow work. She clumsily slapped the BDSM/kink part onto depth psychology and elements of it are really off and incongruent. Don't be fooled by her PhD - which has nothing to do with psychology, analytic or otherwise - or the fact that she's been published. It's like a new age, witch craft publishing house.
Yeah, she's not a source material in the sense that I take anything she writes as remotely canonical, she's just part of how I got into the topic (which I mostly learned from talking to other people, I'm a bit behind on my formal reading on it). Apologies if I didn't make that clear in the article.
That being said, I'm aware that her book is mostly nonsense, but I found it surprisingly useful nonsense, so I've got a soft spot for it!
Thanks for the clarification! Yes, her exercises are useful to get your feet wet with shadow work and inner work in general. I just wish that the masses could be introduced to the work by someone more properly trained and less of an occult charismatic whack. Ironically that's perhaps how some people viewed Jung in the past. He's since become canonical!