Remembering, Repeating, Working-Through: Working with the Shadow

“Everyone carries a shadow”, according to Jung, “and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is."
Being an irrational realm, the Shadow is prone to being projected so that our own inferiority ends up appearing to us as a deficiency in the other.  "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."
In dealing with Shadow, three phases of our engagement can be seen.  In the first phase, a person is either unaware or so dimly aware that the only evidence that can be detected consists of the projected contents.  These are reflected back to a person in the form of other’s deficiencies.  Another phase consists of revealing of Shadow in its true form, that is, as disowned, unacceptable aspects of the Self.  This is a phase of recovery of projections.  An individual begins to be emancipated from the  enslavement to Shadow.  In the course of this phase the bondage imposed upon others by the projected contents is diminished.  We might compare this phase to the aroma that wafts through the air, it does not sate the appetite but may arouse the appetite for the actual victuals.  Finally, there is a phase that involves integrating Shadow into the personality. Here Shadow becomes integrated into the whole Self.  There is no longer a need to stow The Secret Sharer of our unconscious below deck.
In Freud’s essay, “Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through” he offers relevant insights that can be adapted to the work with the Shadow.  In order to adapt Freud’s ideas you must overlook how his thoughts are encased in his theories of psychosexual development.  Patients, according to Freud, begin by repeating.  “As long as the patient is in treatment he cannot escape from his compulsion to repeat and in the end we understand this is his way of remembering.”
“...the patient yields to the compulsion to repeat, which now replaces the impulsion to remember.”  Substitute projection of Shadow for repeating in Freud's essay.  Where you see Freud discussing remembering replace it with the notion of recognizing and recovering the project Shadow elements.  Finally, Freud credits the handling of transference as the main instrument for converting a patient’s compulsion to repeat into a motive to remember.  “One must allow the patient time to become more conversant with this resistance (to remembering) with which he has now become acquainted, and work through it.”
What striking similarities exist between Freud’s evolving psychoanalytic techniques and the work with the Shadow proposed by Analytical Psychology.  Both render the unconscious realm as pressing itself upon life in the form of either repetition (Freud) or projection (Jung).  Both assert a critical role for remembering (Freud) and becoming conscious (Jung).  And the notion of working-through (Freud) and integration (Jung) seem to be one in the same.  Both Freud and Jung were pointing toward a cauldron of unconscious, instinctive, irrational psychological stuff that plays out to the detriment of all concerned when it remains unconscious and can be incorporated and dealt with through therapy.
Ask yourself what means you have found to work with Shadow.  How do you foster the ability to move from projecting (and repeating to do so) to recovering projections?  How do you encourage the arduous task of helping clients make the journey from repeating to remembering, from  projecting and recovering a projection?  And finally, what have you found helpful with regard to working-through (or integration of Shadow)?
References
Jung, C.G. (1938). "Psychology and Religion." In CW 11: Psychology and Religion: West and East. P.131
Jung, C.G. (1951). "Phenomenology of the Self" In The Portable Jung. P.147
See http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/220 for a text of "The Secret Sharer" by Joseph Conrad.
See http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/201/articles/1914FreudRemembering.pdf for a copy of the essay "Remembering. Repeating and Working-Through:

Len Cruz, MD