All gaps in our actual knowledge are still filled out with projections. We are still so sure we know what other people think or what their true character is. We are convinced that certain people have all the bad qualities we do not know in ourselves or that they practice all those vices which could, of course, never be our own.We must still be exceedingly careful not to project our own shadows too shamelessly; we are still swamped with projected illusions. If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all these projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a considerable shadow [...]
Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world ... How can anyone see straight when he does not even see himself and the darkness he unconsciously carries with him into all his dealings?
[C.G. Jung]
The Essential Jung, p.242, 243
During the process of treatment [psycho-analysis] the dialectical discussion leads logically to a meeting between the patient and his shadow, that dark half of the psyche which we invariably get rid of by means of projection: either by burdening our neighbours - in a wider or narrower sense - with all the faults we obviously have ourselves, or by casting our sins upon a divine mediator [through repentance].
[C.G. Jung]
The Essential Jung, p.279
... if one can conceive of a fully integrated person, then that person takes full responsibility for all feelings and ideas that belong to being alive. By contrast, it is a failure of integration when we need to find the things we disapprove of outside ourselves and do so at a price - this price being the loss of the destructiveness which really belongs to ourselves.I am talking, therefore, about the development which has to take place in every individual of the capacity to take responsibility for the whole of that individual's feelings and ideas, the word 'health' being closely linked with the degree of integration which makes it possible for this to happen.
One thing about a healthy person is that he or she does not have to use in a big way the technique of projection in order to cope with his or her own destructive impulses and thoughts.
[D.W. Winnicott]
Home Is Where We Start From: Essays By A Psychoanalyst ('Aggression, Guilt and Reparation'), p.82
The person you hate the most and you're most angry at, understand every reason why you're angry at them. Understand every reason why they might be doing that.
[Andrew W.K.]
The personal shadow works destructively against ego-ideals; the collective shadow tries to demolish collective ideals. Both these shadows also have a very valuable function.Both ego and collective ideals must be repeatedly subjected to attack, since they are false and one-sided. Were they not continually being eaten into from the depths of the human soul, there would be neither individual nor collective development.
[Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig]
Power In The Helping Professions, p.113
Related posts:-
Holding the Conflict Within
Taking Back the Projection
Imperfect Relationships
Evil and us
2 comments:
... similar temptations (and even more evil ones) abound in the lives of the saints. The saints attributed them to the works of the devil and, with God's help, were able to overcome them. Similarly, the restraints you habitually impose on yourselves as a rule prevent those temptations from stirring in you, or the unexpected release of the thief or the murderer in you.
The oppression of a sultry summer afternoon has never succeeded in melting the crust of your habitual probity, momentarily rousing in you the original animal. You can condemn.
[Luigi Pirandello]
One, No One & One Hundred Thousand, p. 71
Because of the split archetype, destructiveness in the sense of the archetypal shadow, the unconscious, etc., is no longer primarily the therapist's problem; he has shaken it off and experiences it only in projections, so that by and large he enjoys something resembling inner peace.
[Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig]
Power In The Helping Professions, p.134
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