Family Research Council leader caught w/ gay prostitute

[Nat]

I am so not an expert in psychological theory, but my understanding of Jung's "shadow aspect" is that people tend to take the things they dislike about themselves and try to reject those things. But they can't really eradicate those qualities within themselves - they can only repress them.

From wikipedia - because I'm an intellectual like that -

According to Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to project: turning a personal inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. Jung writes that if these projections are unrecognized "The projection-making factor (the Shadow archetype) then has a free hand and can realize its object--if it has one--or bring about some other situation characteristic of its power." These projections insulate and cripple individuals by forming an ever thicker fog of illusion between the ego and the real world.


I do wish Jung hadn't used images of dark and light to make his point, but I do think he has a point that the things you repress/despise in yourself get projected onto others. I think it goes along with that saying, "The things you despise most in others are the things you despise most in yourself."