It is in this tension between what we are and what the world wants us to be that Van Eenwyck and other Jungians that the creative act emerges. The Shadow helps to drive our willingness to see things in a different way, while the Persona directs us to remain within the confines of accepted perspectives and practices when diverging in some way from these perspectives and practices.
Much as we must place a new experience within an existing framework (assimilation) while engaging in some new learning (accommodation), we must work within an existing framework (Persona) while creating something new (Shadow). David must look like the biblical figure being portrayed, a new, inexpensive electric tool must be something that people will use, there must be the need for better storage devices, and the innovative idea will remain in the organizational crevice if it doesn’t address an immediate organizational concern.
While we may operate in solitude when waiting, imagining or anticipating, we must always bounce against external reality as defined and defended in large part by other people, when we begin to move from nothingness to something. We face the reality of a block of marble that is to be fashioned into an appealing image, the presentation of a new idea about storage or tools, or the positioning of an organizational innovation. We best face this reality with a little help from other people.
In sum, we can view the Persona as a source of creative restraint, while the Shadow is a source of creative unrestraint. It is also interesting to refer back to the matter of creative ideas popping out at inconvenient times and in inconvenient places. The Shadow component in our unconscious is not only the potential source of our outlandish and creative ideas, This Jungian component is also assigned the role of “jokester.” The Shadow delights in providing us with a creative idea when we are challenged to record it. The Shadow is fully energized when we are groggy or dripping wet and searching for a piece of dry paper, or when we disrupt our dining to search for the paper napkin or decide to break all social norms and write something on the restaurant menu. We can then try to return to sleep, stand there naked in the shower with our damp piece of paper, or apologize to our waiter and perhaps others at our table. . .
Regardless of the reason why we often find it inconvenient to record our creative idea after it emerges from the Incubation stage, it is worth noting that the idea will appear out of nothingness.
Regression in Service of the Ego
Ego Psychologists also have something to say about creativity. Rather than fashioning it as a tension between the Persona and Shadow, they introduce a psychic entity they call the Ego and propose that creativity often occurs when the Ego choses to free some of its usual ties with reality in order to open the opportunity for “non-reality” to hold sway for a short period of time. Basically, regression in the service of the ego (RITSE) has to do with the human capacity to revert to more primitive forms of ego processing when seeking to be creative. Regression of Ego functions takes place on behalf of a desire of the psyche to be creative, and ultimately for this creativity to enhance one’s adaptive capacities in an ever-changing environment.
Specifically, RITSE is a concept engaged by ego psychologists to describe a controlled, temporary, and partial relaxation of the mature ego’s critical and realistic functions. This ego-based process allows for access to primitive, unstructured, and often highly symbolic unconscious material. RITSE is adaptive, unlike pathological regression, where an individual reverts to immature coping mechanisms under stress. RITSE provides “play space” and sanctuaries. The mature ego deliberately deploys this mechanism to retrieve preconscious or unconscious content, typically for constructive purposes such as problem-solving, insight generation, or creative expression. The “service” aspect means the ego initiates the process not as a defense against anxiety, but as an active strategy to overcome intellectual or emotional impasses.
