Reviews > How to Befriend Your Shadow

How to Befriend Your Shadow
Author: John Monbourquette
Novalis, 2001, 155 p.p.


Simple, practical – and electric – this excellent text for those seeking to better understand the shadow as described by Jungian psychology is now beautifully translated from French into English. Well known in the French community for introducing Jungian though, John Monbourquette earned his Ph.D. in transformational psychology at the International College of Los Angeles in 1985 following his Masters in Clinical Psychology at the U of San Francisco in 1975. A Catholic priest, Monbourquette posits that rather than recoiling and resisting it, the shadow should, conversely, be warmly welcomed. Sincere attempts should be made to understand the messages beneath its grey, sometimes heavy, cloak. The shadow, he explains, urges our growth and if we can but accept our unloved side, we can open the door to a life-long friend.

I benefited with just one of the many useful exercises in this book: Monbourquette directs readers to choose a symbol for that which is recognized as shadow – anything will do. I chose a prickly, needly, dry old cactus somewhere in a gritty, arid desert. Next, we are to choose a symbol for our creativity. I selected a fountain pen. Now, he instructs, with the shadow-symbol cupped in one outstretched hand and the creativity motif in the other, slowly, with eyes closed, bring the two closer and closer together. How do the shadow-symbol and the creativity- symbol meet and interact? What happens? As for me, my fountain pen dipped into the cactus and used the milk in it for ink!

Many years ago whilst studying a sophisticated courses in Shakespeare, I often began my studies of each new play by reading a simplified version – among those rewritten as children’s stories in the 1800’s by siblings Charles and Mary Lamb – in the Children’s section of the Frazer Hickson Library.

Likewise, How to Befriend Your Shadow renders a similar extremely helpful service. Its informal explanation of complex material is admirably set out in eight subdivided chapters detailing a definition of the shadow, methods of recognizing it, accepting it and integrating it to nurture one’s growth.

Replete with delightful illustrative anecdotes and useful diagrams, Monbourquette begins by pointing out that, in traditional civilizations, the purpose of the initiatory rite of passage was precisely to allow adolescents to face their fears and separate from their parents so they could enter the adult world. ‘This is the goal of shadow work at the start of the spiritual life: to come face to face with our fears.”

Monbourquette, now retired from teaching at St. Paul’s university in Ottawa, shares how he has dealt with his own shadow/fears. While still a practicing Catholic priest, Monbourquette does not hide from the sexual issues that are shadow material of the Catholic Church: the celibacy rule and the Catholic Church’s position against gay and lesbian relationships amongst its members. These and other issues, he suggests, need to be openly discussed.

Individuation is a forever process and so the shadow is always with us. As Monbourquette wisely suggests, “Why not make friends with our own twin?”