Archetype of the Shadow: Understanding Human Disposition Towards Evil

In the last few decades, archetype theory has become one of the most important concepts in psychology. It is fundamental to building a comprehensive and deep understanding of human psychology, behavior and contemporary culture.

We are living in a time when the history is repeating itself – a war has broken out again in Europe. After February 24, 2022, when the Russian forces invaded Ukraine, more and more reports began to emerge about the incredible atrocities taking place in this war. The evidence was overwhelming, and the content is horrific beyond belief. While still trying to get over the initial shock, it is necessary to ask: how is such evil possible? How can a human being commit something like that - where is the root of this evil?

The answer is offered by Carl Gustav Jung's analytical psychology. In his time, Jung devoted much attention to the question of how Nazism arose and flourished in Germany resulting in war and holocaust. His answer focuses on the depth structures of the collective unconscious, namely the archetypes, among which one of the most important ones is the archetype of the Shadow.

As it is defined by Jung, Shadow is an archetypal structure of the personal part of the psyche, the rejected part of the Ego: “the thing he has no wish to be” (Jung, CW 16, § 470). Shadow consists of all the elements of the personality that have been deemed worthless, harmful, disturbing, and have thus been dissociated. Does this mean that evil is rooted deeply into the fabric of human existence? How can we handle it? Is the unconscious evil? What is the relation between good and evil? These and other questions will be addressed in the presentation.