The Psychology of Political Chaos
During a week devoted to “Cosmos from Chaos: Living Consciously in a Troubled World” at the Jung Center in NYC, the various sessions focused on how we, individually, can grow in consciousness during such troubled times. Our primary task is to recognize our shadow and the unconscious elements that prevent our full transformation.
Jung called the shadow, cryptically, “The thing a person has no wish to be.” The shadow can be seen as the negative part of the personality, everything that is inferior and rejected, both positive and negative. In most instances, rather than to come to grips with our inferior or negative shadow side, we are more likely to project these negative traits on family, friends and co-workers. Projection is an unconscious process and since it is archetypal, it can never be fully integrated into consciousness.
Our first instructor said, courtesy of Jung, “There is no change in consciousness without pain.” She often quoted literature to make a point, this time Lear, Oedipus and Clytemnestra and how their initial heroic efforts to transforms themselves ended in failure. This was outside work, playing to the public and their egos. Transformation comes from within. Our task is to find shadow and transform it. If not, psychologically speaking, we will lose spontaneity; we dry up.
No one is immune from this shadow work. The instructor mentioned her forty-year friendship with a woman that ended for no apparent reason. It took her almost a decade of reflection and terror, as she put it, to realize that her ego-driven behavior, marked by displays of superiority and the like, had contributed to the rift with a female friend. All of us have a tendency to repress our shadows because of links to trauma, guilt and the like. The greater the trauma usually means the greater the resistance. The challenge is to overcome this resistance, understand the shadow and make it conscious.
Another instructor brought the conversation about shadow into the political realm. She reminded us that Jung started writing his “Red Book” in 1913 after he dreamed of Europe as a river of blood, anticipating World War I. She said that this was when Jung discovered his personal and collective shadow. For Jung, the shadow was a moral problem in that the shadow elements, the dark aspects of the unconscious, are projected into the world. We get a daily dose of this shadow projection, whether the subject is religion, politics, immigrants, foreigners and the like. The “Other” is often the creation and the target of our dark projections that are always based on the inferior and rejected parts, either positive or negative, of the personality. If we see negatives in other people, we are usually projecting our own shadow. And there is a caveat. Without projection there is no consciousness. Therefore, we need to be aware of what we are projecting.
The instructor said that the collective shadow often represents a country’s national mythology which is often itself in shadow and can be especially attractive to people who feel diminished. The collective shadow seems to be most powerful when there is a crisis in individual development or there is social, political and religious upheaval. To the displeasure of some in the class the instructor spoke about Trump’s shadow side, his fragile ego, his tendency to blame and project responsibility onto others, his narcissism and his truncated language. She suggested that this behavior could represent pure shadow, willful distraction, some other disorder or all the above. Whatever we call it, the consciousness of some Americans has drifted into the shadow world where lies, fake news, deep state and other conspiracy theories abound.
Another instructor took a longer view, suggesting that since the time of the Renaissance the world has been facing a global catastrophe led by the ego which, as Jung has written, is an insufficient psychic container to hold all the unconscious stuff that is bubbling up to the surface. She said we are fish swimming in psyche, ruled by unrestrained ego. Ego culture says: “I’m on top. I have the answers and the way. I am the greatest.”
In such a national psychological state opposition hardens; anxiety increases; and we are more likely to project shadow material onto our neighbors. We lose the middle ground and tend more toward extremes. A psychological truism suggests that projections are more “successful” when the desired target provides a “hook,” a willingness to embrace the projections, usually in an unconscious manner.
Of course, the irony in a world run by the ego is that the ego becomes hardened and isolated. It is not open to other nurturing, life-sustaining and feminine influences. In this state the ego is overwhelmed by the unconscious. Much of the political chatter on social media, including by President Trump, provides a good example of shadow material, operating somewhere between narcissism and “no apology,” represented by lies, half-truths, threats, bullying, persona-shifting and the like. In very measurable ways the shadow is being normalized and, when something particularly egregious spills out, it is often labeled as a joke.
In the sessions I attended at the Jung Center in NYC the instructors took pains to stay within a psychological framework when discussing the Trump administration. We were reminded of the Goldwater rule, adopted by the American Psychiatric Association in 1964, prohibiting psychiatrists from commenting on public figures. The organization stressed the need for personal evaluation. While the rule appears to be still in place, the association has softened its stance, allowing members to use their knowledge of psychology responsibly in the public square. This shift was prompted by association members arguing that they have a duty to warn the country about Trump’s “narcissism, impulsivity, poor attention span, paranoia and other traits” that impair his ability to lead. American mythology, which is our creation story, has always harbored a dark side but no politician in memory has so embraced the dark side of the American psyche from day one as President Trump.
During the week at the Jung Center learning about the psychology of chaos, we learned that the most useful response to shadow elements is to shine a steady light of consciousness on this dark material, thereby transforming the unconscious and ourselves. And we always begin with ourselves, looking for the North Star of our lives.

