Personality types: Jung's model of typology - Inner City Books

96 Concluding Remarksidentifies with the persona—which in effect is to deny thatone has a shadow—the more trouble one will have with theunacknowledged "other side" of the personality.Thus the shadow constantly challenges the morality of thepersona, and, to the extent that ego-consciousness identifieswith the persona, the shadow also threatens the ego. In theprocess of psychological development that Jung called individuation,disidentification from the persona and the consciousassimilation of the shadow go hand in hand. The idealis to have an ego strong enough to acknowledge both personaand shadow without identifying with either of them.This is not as easy as it sounds. We tend to identify withwhat we are good at, and why shouldn't we? The superiorfunction, after all, has an undeniable utilitarian value. Itgreases the wheels, life runs smoothly; it generally bringspraise, material rewards, a degree of satisfaction. It inevitablybecomes a prominent aspect of the persona. Why give it up?The answer is that we don't—unless we have to. And when dowe "have to"?—when we encounter situations in life that arenot amenable to the way we usually function; that is, when theway we tend to look at things doesn't work.In practice, as noted earlier, the shadow and everything associatedwith it is virtually synonomous with unlived life."There is more to life than this," is a remark heard often in theanalyst's office. All that I consciously am and aspire to be effectivelyshuts out what I might be, could be, also am. Someof what I "also am" has been or is repressed because it was—or is—environmentally unacceptable; some is simply unrealizedpotential.Through introspection, we can become aware of shadowaspects of the personality, but we may still resist them or feartheir influence. And even where they are known and would bewelcome, they are not readily available to the conscious will.For instance, I may be well aware that my intuition is shad-