A Little Book on the Human Shadow

Robert Bly has this wonderful Jungian lens through which he sees the world. Here he is discussing the subconscious mind, which he represents with the metaphor of the shadow. The book is distilled from three or four poetry readings he gave in the 1970s. He wants us to be in touch with our dark side, meaning the subconcious. The metaphor of the shadow he sees is also a bag in which we are forced to put every personal attribute not desired by our parents, who want us to be only "nice." Yet we are essentially wild animals at heart. What should we do with all that anger, rage, sexuality, creativity, whatever, that we've been forced to suppress? Well, when we get to about 35 or 40, Bly says, we have to start taking things out of the bag. Unless we take them out, unless we address them, we will become damaged. Please don't read this book if you've never had a psychology course or have not familiarized yourself with psychological concepts through reading, esp. Jungian ones. Those without such a background are likely to see Bly as little more than a raving lunatic. He is not. What I found fascinating (again) was how very discursive Bly's thought process is. He's been thinking in Jungian terms for so long that his analysis, essentially cultural analysis, psychohistory, can be a little dense at times. This is one of those books that you have to absorb over time, reflect upon, pick up again, and re-read. Fortunately it's only 81 pages long.

Psicologia