The Benefits of Shadow Work Over Therapy

Shadow work is often more positive and empowering

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Online forums are filled with comments about people struggling to find a therapist, having an abusive therapist, being re-traumatised by therapy, and making slow progress in sessions. Therapy can also be expensive, making it inaccessible to some.

When done through specialised reading, journalling, and self-directed introspection, shadow work can be a very useful alternative to therapy. In fact, it can even be better than therapy for some. Discover the many advantages of shadow work here.

The Benefits of Shadow Work

1. Shadow work doesn’t give you a self-fulfilling psychological diagnosis

While having a psychological diagnosis can help some people, for others it can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy by which you, your therapist, and your peers interpret everything you do — including healthy, normal things — through the lens of your diagnosis. This isn’t helpful or healthy, and it can even lead to discrimination. (For example, some people with anxiety aren’t taken seriously for physical ailments and are told it’s just their anxiety.)

Shadow work, meanwhile, doesn’t give you reductive, pathologising labels. Instead, it involves you doing independent introspection to discover your ‘shadow’ — the parts of your…