Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 14, 1992 TAG: 9203140164
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DON OLDENBURG THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
His clients had been distressed during recent therapy sessions at the New Berlin Community Counseling Center, about 10 miles from the scene of the gruesome crimes. Like most of the residents of that conservative Midwestern city, they couldn't turn away from the graphic TV reports and newspaper accounts, wavering between revulsion and attraction.
Shining some light on the evil that lurks in everyone, Drapes figured, might relieve some of the mounting tension. But he wasn't sure anyone would show up. He knows only too well how reluctant people are to confront their own demons.
Despite minimal publicity, dozens of people had to be turned away at the door. Inside, the standing-room-only crowd listened intently for 90 minutes as Drapes encouraged his audience not to see evil only in the Adolf Hitlers, Saddam Husseins and Jeffrey Dahmers - but in themselves.
"The interest far surpassed anything I had imagined," says Drapes. "Jeffrey Dahmer made them look a little closer at their own dark side."
"The Child Within" and "12 Steps to Recovery" aren't the only psychological buzzwords that are changing how people view themselves and their inner conflicts.
Say hello to "the shadow." No, actually, say hello to your shadow. That's what's being urged by an increasing number of psychologists, authors and lecturers who believe the path to becoming a well-balanced person winds through the darkest nooks and crannies of our personalities.
"If we don't become aware of the shadow, it will take control of us," Drapes told his audience. Alluding to lessons to be learned from popular films such as "Cape Fear" - not to mention the real-life foibles of television evangelists Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker - he warned, "If we don't see it on the inside, it will take control of us on the outside."
Just how much a part of contemporary psycho-jargon "the shadow" is becoming can be demonstrated by the "in" social critics, authors and thinkers who signed on to perhaps the most comprehensive book on the subject, "Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side in Human Nature" (Jeremy P. Tarcher Inc., $12.95).
The book is co-edited by Jeremiah Abrams, a therapist and director of the Mount Vision Institute, in Sausalito, Calif., and Connie Zweig, formerly the executive editor of the Brain-Mind Bulletin and now senior editor at Tarcher in Los Angeles.
Among those who exorcise the forces of darkness in its 65 essays is the lately ubiquitous Robert Bly, the drum-beating poet laureate of men's consciousness. There's also the late mythologist Joseph Campbell, Inner Child guru John Bradshaw and M. Scott Peck, author of the best-selling "The Road Less Traveled."
Practitioners of what is now being called "shadow work" define it as the unconscious part of the personality that has been repressed and denied throughout the development of the ego - which is close to how pioneering psychologist Carl Jung first explained it decades ago when he introduced the concept to modern psychotherapy. "The shadow is the byproduct of the individual's psychological development from birth," says Abrams. "What doesn't fit in one's self concept goes into the shadow."
That includes all the unattractive, improper and negative elements, feelings and behaviors that society and our parents disapproved of - such as greed, shame, envy, lust, jealousy, guilt, hatred, cruelty or selfishness. And the shadow harbors those exiled - though not necessarily negative - aspects of ourselves that were forbidden expression in our family life, such as sexuality, anger or insecurity.
But the shadow isn't simply the toxic dump of personality development. Jung maintained 90 percent of the shadow is gold - gifts and talents we innately have that are never developed because they weren't encouraged.
The problem is all these shelved behaviors and talents don't just lie dormant. They sabotage our thoughts and often, at midlife, when we re-evaluate ourselves, they come erupting out as erratic and even harmful behavior.
Abrams encourages people to approach the shadow with a sense of fearlessness. "The idea in taking on the shadow is that we enlarge our self-concept. We become more because we consume the unacceptable."
by CNB