The shadow theory was created by Carl Jung. He said that we all have various structures of psyche, some of them being ego and shadow. The shadow is best described as “parts of us we don't want to admit exist”, “that thing a person has no wish to be”.
Jung writes, “shadow is that hidden, repressed, for the most part inferior and guilt-laden personality”.
Working with the person's shadow is something we do in therapy, and it's crucial to growing as a person, leading to self acceptance and self forgiveness.
As you can see, there's a lot of potential for writing here. Creating our characters we don't only think of the good sides they have, the face they put on when they're with people, of their successful and joyful days; we also create their flaws, insecurities, how they act when nobody's watching. A lot of that is working with a shadow.
Person's shadow develops ever since early childhood. For example, if we're numerously criticized for being too dreamy, we can learn how to appear more down-to-earth. Our true self doesn't change, while the social mask grows. It's important for a person to be able to differentiate which is which.
If you wish to focus on this more, take a character of yours and question:
• what are they most ashamed of?
• what would they hide from others for all eternity? Why? Where does it come from?
• what do they do to not show their shadow self? Are they successful in that?
• are there moments where the mask falls off?
• what are their deepest fears and insecurities?
What's important to add is that a character can either ignore and push their shadow away, pretending nothing is wrong, or face the reality and decide to work through it. Both options can lead us into interesting writing scenarios. Especially since the things we ignore and push away still resurface one way or the other - for example, someone can lash out "out of nowhere" or ghost their friends suddenly.
It's also good to point out how one's shadow influences others around them, for example through projecting.
PROJECTING = "defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against disowned and highly negative parts of the self by denying their existence in themselves and attributing them to others" (Wikipedia)
Example:
A character X starts a fight with their friend Y, because Y was “too clingy” when in reality X was very insecure about the friendship (but they don't know that or push it out of their consciousness).
Another mechanism connected to shadow self is called masking, or social camouflaging. "It's a defensive behavior in which an individual conceals their natural personality or behavior in response to social pressure, abuse, or harassment." It's often seen in autistic individuals, but is absolutely not limited to them.
Examples of masking can be: controlling how often you smile, for how long you look into someone's eyes, controlling the tone of your voice, consciously stopping yourself from moving too much.
Click HERE to read about character's insecurities or HERE to read about attachment styles.
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