From Erich Fromm - "I believe that the development of man in the last four thousand years of history is truly awe inspiring. He has developed his reason to a point where he is solving the riddles of nature, and has emancipated himself from the blind power of the natural forces. But at the very moment of his greatest triumph, when he is at the threshold of a new world, he has succumbed to the power of the very things and organizations he has created. He has invented a new method of producing, and has made production and distribution his new idol. He worships the work of his hands and has reduced himself to being the servant of things. He uses the name of God, of freedom, of humanity, of socialism, in vain ; he prides himself on his powers - the bombs and the machines - to cover up his human bankruptcy; he boasts of his power to destroy in order to hide his human impotence."
CHAOS SHADOW THEORY
Psychodynamic Structures
In using a psychodynamic approach, to understand an individual's underlying motivations for his/her behavior, the focus is on the influence of his/her unconscious mental processes on his/her behavior. The interplay of these unconscious processes is what determines his/her thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. An individual's primary motivation is the rationalization of his/her drives and instincts, or the reconciliation of the conflicting claims of his/her Id, Ego, and Super-ego. (Due to the nature of sociopathy, which will be discussed, the role of the Super-ego isn't important throughout this discussion.) In an unconscious part of the psyche, memories and desires are hidden from an individual's conscious awareness because of Ego constraints. The contents of the unconscious may only be brought into consciousness through the removal of these Ego defenses.
When an individual pushes abnormal psychic states (Psyche refers to mental dynamics as they pertain to energy, motion, and forcefulness.) down into his/her unconscious, the energy creates a drive that starts pushing up from the unconscious to the surface of the conscious. If enough negative energy builds up in the unconscious, and the Ego pushes it down (represses it) to keep it out of conscious awareness, its force will grow stronger, and it will eventually want to come out and manifest itself at a conscious level of awareness, be it through displaced emotions, catharsis, etc. (see Figure 1). This energy feeds the structures of the unconscious.
The Shadow is a structural component of the psyche. It's the darker side of our unconscious self. The Shadow is a part of the personality.
It's the dark side of the personality that contains the animal instincts, therefore it's intimately connected to the Id and its structures thanatos and eros. It's the part of the personality that's repressed from the Ego.
It's in conflict with the Ego, therefore it's forced out of mental awareness by the Ego's defense mechanisms. It's built up of emotionally laden thoughts that can influence an individual's behavior. The Shadow can manifest itself at a conscious level of awareness, in the case of a serial murderer, because of his sociopathic character and personality structure, the organic disorders that exist in his limbic brain, and the extreme nature of phenomena that his Ego is repressing, which has been developed from the unique psychodynamic influences that have structured his unconscious, hence his Shadow. My theory is based on these factors.
From Erich Fromm - "I believe that the development of man in the last four thousand years of history is truly awe inspiring. He has developed his reason to a point where he is solving the riddles of nature, and has emancipated himself from the bli...