Warts and All: The Shadow and Wholeness

Getting rid of the negative is our habitual Western approach to improving ourselves and the world. This often turns out to mean cultivating an idealized self-image by repressing unwelcome parts of our nature into the unconscious shadow. The shadow is then projected onto others and there seen as evil calling for condemnation and destruction.

Erich Newmann wrote in Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, “The Time has now come for the principle of perfection to be sacrificed on the altar of wholeness.” The seminar will focus on shadow formation and projection; bipolar adversarial conflict; scapegoating; victimology; the anthropology of “evil”; and shadow reclamation in the service of wholeness.