#166 Exploring the Shadow Side of our personality

In The Shadow of the Object (1987, Routledge), psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas explains how our psyche carries traces of early objects (caregivers, environments, emotional climates). These traces shape how we perceive ourselves and others. They can appear in adult life as sudden shifts in self-experience. They are ‘shadow’ because they are felt (preconsciously) but not symbolised, meaning we have not absorbed them consciously into our self-image.

As such, the ‘Shadow Side’ contains aspects of our personality we might reject. When we project onto others, we notice aspects of them we find in ourselves, even though we may deny the existence of these traits in our personality.

Coaching is full of moments where the coach encounters a client’s behaviour, tone, or stance and feels a sudden shift - tightening, irritation, admiration, distancing, rescuing. In each case, the coach is not only responding to the client; they are also reacting to a shadowed part of themselves that the client has inadvertently brought into the room.

These moments reveal the system client is living in and the coach’s own internalised relational landscape. When recognised, they transform into empathy: ‘Ah, this is what this part of the client feels like from the inside.’ They also support ethical self-awareness: the coach can distinguish between what belongs to the client and what might be their own Shadow Side.

Exercise

To begin to recognise your own Shadow Side, try this exercise. It reveals our projections and allows us to own them a little more.

Step 1.

Write down three adjectives (A, B and C) that describe the best version of yourself. This is what you want people to experience when you enter a room.

Step 2.

Now, think of someone in a work context you do not respect. Imagine they come into the room where you are right now. What happens? Write down three adjectives (X, Y and Z) you would use to describe them.

Step 3.

Say aloud, ‘I’m [state your name]. When I work with others, I want to be seen as A, B and C; but sometimes I may come across as X, Y and Z’.

Now consider what shifted for you when you said it aloud. How do you recognise parts of that other person that might be parts of you? How might you find empathy for those parts that you share with the other person?

Next time you encounter a sudden shift during coaching, notice what it reveals in you. This is where supervision becomes essential: it creates a space where previously unconsidered aspects of us can begin to be explored, and where the coach can process and make use of these shadow encounters rather than continue to act them out.