How to Do Shadow Work Through Images, Not Prompt Lists

Shadow work through art means giving the parts of yourself you have pushed away a form on paper, a figure, a color, a torn image, so you can meet them outside yourself instead of arguing with them in your head. In a visual journal you begin from your resources, let images arrive before explanations, and witness the figure before you interpret it.

I am Rakefet Hadar, an art therapist, an author, and the founder of the school that trains SoulPages facilitators to guide creative work in a visual journal. Search for shadow work and you get lists: thirty prompts, fifty prompts, questions asking you to write about your jealousy, your anger, the traits you judge in other people. A written question goes straight to the part of you that already has its defense ready. An image slips in through a side door, and it usually arrives before the defense has time to wake up.

What is the shadow, in plain words?

In Carl Jung’s psychology, the shadow is everything in you that you pushed out of sight because it did not fit who you were supposed to be: anger that was not allowed, a need that felt shameful, ambition you learned to hide. It does not disappear. It shows up sideways, in a sharp irritation at someone else, in a dream, in an image that grabs you for no reason you can name.

The shadow is not only dark. Jungian writers also speak of a “golden shadow”, the gifts and the brightness you disowned just as firmly as the anger. The qualities you admire a little too much in another woman often live there.

When I teach the inner artist archetype to SoulPages facilitators, we name that archetype’s shadow plainly: the starving artist, the madness, the harsh self-criticism and judgment. Every archetype carries a shadow side. Knowing its name is what lets you enjoy the gifts of the archetype without suffering from its dark side.

Why work with images instead of prompts?

Three reasons, and they build on each other:

1. An image gets chosen before the mind votes. The shadow was hidden by the thinking mind in the first place, so asking that same mind to write about it is asking the guard to open the gate. When your hand stops on a picture in a magazine pile before you know why, something other than the guard made that choice.
2. A figure on paper gives you distance. Once the disowned part has a body on the page, a black silhouette, a collaged face, a smear of red, it is outside you. You can look at it instead of being it, and that distance is what makes the meeting bearable.
3. Jung did it this way himself. He did not stop at words. He painted the figures he met in his inner work, in the pages that became The Red Book.

Is shadow work safe to do on your own?

It can be, if you go slowly and start from strength. Shadow material can stir anger, grief and shame that have been held down for years, and diving into it alone, all at once, can flood you instead of freeing you.

In SoulPages we never go to the hardest material directly unless you brought it yourself and you are ready to work with it. Every session begins with resources, the strong and good parts of you: people you love, places that held you, moments you were braver than you knew. The shadow is approached only from that ground.

Pause and close the journal if your body switches to alarm, if you go foggy or far away, or if the same scene keeps replaying without relief. If that overwhelm returns every time you open the journal, this material needs a therapist alongside you, and your pages can travel with you into that room. My article on whether it is safe to journal about trauma covers pacing and closing rituals in detail.

How do you meet your shadow on a page, step by step?

You need a journal with thick pages, a pile of old magazines, scissors, glue and a few colors you already own. Thirty minutes is enough. If this is your first time, make a resource page first, a separate page of what steadies you, and keep it open beside you.

Then walk through the seven elements of a SoulPages page:

1. Intention. Dedicate the page to one figure: a quality that irritates you in other people, or one you admire and never allow yourself. One word is enough. It is a direction, not a plan.
2. The magic of chance. Leaf quickly through the magazines and pull out every image that stops your hand, before you understand why. Don’t argue with the choice. The images that catch you with a small discomfort belong here too.
3. Background. Lay down the first layer of color, the ground this figure will stand on. Choose a color that feels safe to you, because the background is where you stay while you meet it.
4. Images. Give the figure a body. A cut-out silhouette, a collaged face, a drawn shape, a combination of the images you pulled. Let it take up as much of the page as it wants.
5. Color. Add the energy around the figure. Where is it hot, where is it faded, where does it bleed into the background?
6. Line. Draw the line between you and it: a border, a path, a thread connecting the figure to the edge of the page. You decide how close it stands.
7. Text. Last, let the figure say one sentence. Write it next to the figure, in its own voice, without editing.

You do not need every element on every page, and the order is flexible. The structure is there to hold you, so you can move freely inside it.

What do you do with the figure once it is on the page?

Meet it before you explain it. In SoulPages a finished page is met in three steps, in this order:

1. Feeling. What does this page do to me when I look at it? Before any explanation.
2. Description. What is actually there: which images, which colors, what is large and what is small, what is hiding in a corner.
3. One question. An open question that does not suggest an answer, such as “When I added this figure, what was on the page that was not there before?”

Resist naming it too fast. The moment you say “this is my anger”, you trade everything the image holds for a label you already had. Then close the page deliberately: write the date, close the journal, rest both hands on the cover for a breath. Come back to your shadow pages every few months, in batches, and look for the figures that keep returning. My guide to what to do with a page after you make it walks through this witnessing in more detail.

Frequently asked questions

What is shadow work through art?

Shadow work through art is giving the disowned parts of yourself a visible form, a figure, a color or a collaged image, so you can meet them on paper instead of only thinking about them. The image creates distance, and it often reaches material that written questions miss.

Can shadow work be dangerous?

It can overwhelm you if you dive into the hardest material alone and all at once. Start from your resources, keep sessions short, close the page deliberately, and bring in a therapist if the same overwhelm returns every time you open the journal.

Do I need to know how to draw to do shadow work in a journal?

No. Collage, torn paper, color and simple silhouettes carry the work. A figure made from magazine images and one sentence of text is a complete shadow page.

What is the golden shadow?

The golden shadow is the positive side of what you disowned: gifts, confidence or brightness you learned to hide. The qualities you admire a little too much in someone else often point to it.

Should I interpret my shadow drawings?

Describe first and interpret slowly. Notice what the page does to you, describe what is actually on it, then ask one open question. Naming a figure too quickly closes the image down to a label you already had.

How is this different from shadow work journal prompts?

Prompts ask the thinking mind to write about what it has been hiding. Working with images lets your hand choose before the mind decides, gives the shadow a form outside you, and starts from your resources rather than from the wound.

There is often one image in a magazine pile that you keep turning past, and then turning back to… that is usually where the page wants to begin. You do not have to know yet what it means, you only have to let it onto the paper and stay beside it for a while. Give yourself thirty minutes this week, take a page, some watercolor, a few images, and make something that reflects exactly what you feel right now. If you want a gentle, structured way in, my guide to keeping an art therapy journal walks you through the first pages, and the courses at soul-pages.com go further whenever you are ready.

With love,
Rakefet