Often you can hear the question addressed to you: “Who forced you to do this and that?”, or vice versa: “Who is stopping you from doing such and such?” so-and-so?" And you probably thought at least once: “Who really is?” In fact, who forces you to make the worst decision out of all possible ones? Who makes you, on the contrary, miss a very good chance for you? Also, you have probably seen at least once in your life how a person you have known for many years becomes completely different. It was as if he had been replaced in a matter of days, or even hours. Just yesterday you and he were drinking vodka together, telling each other jokes, sharing stories about your adventures on the love front - and today a man has been appointed your boss, and he already demands that you call him by his patronymic and for being late or for overexposure he threatens to be shot. Of course, it would be wrong to reduce everything to a single factor, but the psychological concept of the Shadow explains a lot. So, how does analytical psychology understand the Shadow? This concept was introduced by the great Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. However, what he boiled down into the concept of “Shadow” has been known to mankind since time immemorial, and has been reflected in mythological and folklore stories for centuries. Perhaps not a single story told by the people is complete without some “bad guy”. In most pantheons of Gods there is someone who ruins the lives of both the other gods and people - the Egyptian Set, the Persian Ahriman, the Scandinavian Loki and many others. Not to mention the Christian Devil. However, the “bad guys” among the gods often have a connection with the Trickster archetype, but, nevertheless, the Trickster and the Shadow are somehow interconnected with each other. When a person begins to be led and directed in his actions by the Shadow, then these are obviously those situations that people very clearly described with the expression “The demon has led me astray.” When a person does something clearly bad or absurd, the consequences of which he has to deal with - and sometimes for a very long time. The shadow, as analytical psychology considers it, is those aspects of the human psyche that he is not aware of in himself. And usually this is something that he not only does not realize, but also stubbornly does not recognize, is afraid of, denies. Something the manifestation of which in himself he persistently strives to avoid. According to Jung, a person's personality (Ego or Persona) is just a small part of his entire psyche. A person is not aware of the other part of the psyche within himself. And the Shadow precisely refers to the unconscious sides of the psyche (unconscious). Jung periodically stated that “The Shadow is (merely) the unconscious.” However, here it is worth making an allowance for the fact that this is really true for a person who is only in the early stages of Individuation. In fact, everything unconscious is like a Shadow for him. However, moving deeper into oneself leads to the concretization and crystallization of the Shadow into a more specific figure (as well as other figures of the unconscious). The Shadow of a specific person, as analytical psychology sees it, is that “he” that he himself does not know about, therefore he does not understands and is afraid. The corresponding energy is blocked and therefore takes on a destructive character. Therefore, the Shadow is associated, first of all, with something destructive. The ignored part of the psyche prevents the Ego from implementing its projects and endeavors. But it happens that it completely replaces his personality. Then the person has really been replaced, and he becomes something even opposite to his former self. A possible example would be the transformation of someone who was a hippie at the age of 20 into a forty-year-old conservative entrepreneur. Without knowing the true reasons for his failures and problems rooted in the Shadow, a person projects his problems onto others, more or less specific, blaming them for all his troubles. Thus, a person’s Shadow makes itself felt through its projection onto other people. Analytical psychology in this context introduces a special term: “Shadow Projection”. By looking for scapegoats, a person is capable of giving