Jung and the Shadow

August 16, 2012 10:27 PM

When and it what volume did Jung introduce the concept of the shadow, and what else should i read about it?

I've been through a lot of Jung but can't figure out where he first discussed/defined it. I'm also looking for any other resources on it I can find.

Some of the other authors I'm reading are Bly, Johnson, Campbell, May, and the Zweig/Abrams anthology. I've also ordered the recordings that Bly and Marion Woodman did together. I know Erich Neumann wrote about this, but my library doesn't have his book and I don't need it badly enough to buy it. There's also the Marie-Louise (can't think of her last name) who explored the shadow in fairy tales.

posted by mermaidcafe to Religion & Philosophy (2 answers total)

Marie-Louise von Franz. I was going to suggest her book "Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales", it's very good. Jung himself considered von Franz the best explicator of his theories. The most thorough of Jung's "definitions" (Jung was not fond of definitions, and this is a sticking point for many people interested in his theories) is probably in his work "The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious". There's also a good layman's approach in "Man And His Symbols".
posted by fraula at 2:18 AM on August 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

I have a fairly large Jung library (~ half the Princeton complete works + a couple of the seminars) and do not think this is an easy question to answer. His basic ideas (e. g. the shadow) get reworked and the publication dates get confused with translations and updates. The earliest citation in the Princeton complete works may well be ten or fifteen years after the introduction of the concept. My best guess is this: if you go to his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections and look up "shadow" in the index the first mention is on p. 181 in the chapter "Confrontation with the unconscious". This chapter describes his nervous breakdown he suffered after his professional breakup with Sigmund Freud. 1912. If you look at the dates on the Collected Works they are all over the place.

I don't have time to go further with this right now but if I was going to dig deeper I would look at "On the Psychology of the Unconscious" (1917/1926/1943) from Volume 7, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology.

(According to my very favorite Jungian, the autobiography is the best short introduction to the ideas of Carl Jung.)
posted by bukvich at 6:45 AM on August 18, 2012 [1 favorite]