Of all the oversimplified, cherry-picked, idiotic explanations of the shadow, this book takes the discussion down a couple of pegs. His references are vague at best; there is no scholarship between these covers. Just a bunch of overused drivel and examples carved into the shape he needs to support his premise.
This is an excellent example of a patriarchal view of society and the psychic that does not include the feminine principle whatsoever. It twists and turns on itself to prove what the author decided before he sat down to write it rather than an exploration of the shadow. If there were only men in society and not women of equal stature we could find some merit. However, women exist without regard to who men think they are. This fellow is quite clueless.
The other idea an old tired cliche is that the highest form of human relationship is the love/marraige relationship, or the student/guru relationship which is the sacred vessel. If you say so, you surely give no support of this idea. The examples you give are only true if women are empty vessels just waiting for men to give them meaning. So very tired.
I know I can't read She written by the same author, because this book pissed me off so many times the cover is filled with folds and creased acquired from flying across the room numerous times.

Very insightful take on the concept of shadows and how we project shadows in the relationships(especially romantic) we built throughout our life.

The author, a Jungian analyst, reminds that we have not entered adequately into our consciousness, especially our own shadow. Let's face it, typically we do not integrate the shadow (unlit aspect) of our self as a pure and real unity. Help in reaching out to aspects of our true consciousness lies in the sign of the Christian mandorla. The union pictures two overlapping circles. The overlap looks like an almond (It. - mandorla) of the shadow and the individual persona (ego).

Had to read this one for class and am compelled to add this here to warn people. The theory/concept is one that we could all get from the title and identify with. However this book is written from a narrow revisionist Christian point of view of 1 America, 1 repressed Christian to others. Writing things like: our own scriptures say..., and how we hope to emulate Christ is not the most effective voice and does not speak to the rest of America. Know what your getting into with this one and maybe find one where the author isn't working out his own slanted repressions.

It was good until the last chapter. In the last chapter, he starts writing about the "madorla", and there he gets very hippie-dippy.

Otherwise, he does give an interesting, but non-specific way to deal with your shadow--through ritual, such as writing or burning something. I will have to try this.

While Johnson makes a few good points, Robert Bly’s ‘A Little Book on the Human Shadow’ is a far better book, better written and with considerably more depth.

A collection of loosely related thoughts presented as such without any effort to connect them in a meaningful way. Occasional anecdotes about famous people (Marie Antoinette), quotes from a famous psychologist (Jung), concepts from the Eastern spiritual traditions (satchitananda), and numerous and fairly arbitrary selection of references to Christian theology, are peppered through this small book give the impression that the presented claims have validity by way of their disguised but coinciding appearance in different contexts. But these diversions, while they add some color, are presented without any depth or understanding.

I was curious what the psychological shadow actually is and was therefore drawn to this book. The author, at different points in time, argues that the shadow is a) the set of traits that we have relegated from our persona for the sake of conducting ourselves civilly in society and are therefore those traits that are tinged with a morally dubious aspect, b) the set of influences that we may be missing in our lives that carries us too far in some direction, c) the set of positive traits lying dormant in our unconscious that we have not had the courage to explore and have therefore projected them onto others (say, through hero-worship). For the second point he presents the example of the French queen Marie Antoinette who built a rustic cottage with the intention of spending her time milking cows, having grown unbearably tired of the palatial life. Curiously I encountered this very same example in Alain de Botton's "The Architecture of Happiness." For the third point, he makes the claim that psychological projection is not only applicable in the case of undesirable traits, but rather strangely, we can often catch ourselves projecting the best parts of ourselves onto others as well. This is a good point, although this is not something that he makes through careful argument and several convincing examples, but rather something that I agree with by way of my own life experience.

The various characterizations of the shadow may be somewhat misleading and apparently contradictory (such as the first and third) but in reality it would have been simpler if the author had digested these into a simpler thesis that the shadow is simply the unexplored part of our unconscious. As a self-proclaimed Jungian analyst the author is unable to do even the definition any justice, let alone the subject matter.

The book concludes, in what I already came to suspect by the time I reached the middle, that the journey of integrating your shadow is achieving balance across various dimensions of the personality, which entails necessarily the exploration of the unconscious in a more deliberate way. This is a profound truth about psychological maturity but the book simply presents all these things as disconnected thoughts without a deeper structure or insight to any of them. In effect, for someone who did not realize it or suspects it from a critical perspective, then the book would be of little use, and in fact, could push them to believe that all this is nonsense through and through. Therefore I cannot recommend this book.

One of the best books I read in 2016.

top tier

This is a good book to understand the Jungian concept of shadow but if you are trying to understand how to do the shadow work then this isn’t the right one.

"To stay loyal to paradox is to earn the right to unity.

One of Johnson's short booklets on some of the key issues of life, in a jungian perspective.
Clear and concise, still poetic and with that typical quality of some of the best jungian authors to leave room for the unspoken, to open windows, and doors to new/timeless perspectives of the soul, to tickle and appetite for more...
The last chapter entitled "The Mandorla" is such a gateway, a glimpse of the power in a symbolic act, where art - action - symbol - psyche - poetry are united.

"The shadow as entree to paradox
To own one's shadow is to prepare the ground for spiritual experience. (...) the pearl of great price is to be found in our everyday conflicts and tensions.(...) Conflict to paradox to revelation: that is the divine progression.

People come to the consulting room and lay out a collision of values with great embarrassment and agony. They want resolution but would have something even greater if they could ask for consciousness to bear the paradox.

Jung once said, "Find out what a person fears most and that is where he will develop next." The ego is fashioned like the metal between the hammer and the anvil.
This is for the brave and one does not easily find a moral or ethical nature strong enough for the process. Heroism could be redefined for our time as the ability to stand paradox.
So, in practicality, what do you do? Just to ask the question takes you off center, for it makes you choose between doing and being. (...)
Paradox is brought to its next stage of development by a highly conscious waiting.(...)
To consent to paradox is to consent to suffering that which is greater than the ego. The religious experience lies exactly where we feel we can proceed no further. THis is an invitation to that which is greater than one's self."

My shadow is asking wth did I just read? It could have been a good read but it wasn’t...