Some therapy is about this, but not all. Some focus on changing automatic negative thoughts, or try to change the general theme of your mood and thoughts, or try to make one's defense mechanisms (which are subconscious) less rigid. If someone has a phobia, the therapy will likely attempt to change the subconscious, emotional reaction the person has to the stimulus.

The subconscious is kind of speculative nonsense made up by the early pioneers of psychology to explain things they couldn't explain. It's more reflex, stuff we've learned or become skilled at expressed without effort. Like I don't have to think about walking anymore I solved that problem a long time ago and now my "subconscious" takes care of the details.

I think when people talk about the subconscious they really mean their emotions are in conflict with their thoughts. For example a person in an abusive relationship will often defend the abuser and minimize the harm because they're emotionally invested even though consciously they can see that they're being treated badly. Some people might interpret this as the victim having a subconscious desire to be abused, or stay in the relationship which I think is inaccurate.

+1 Although I will say that we can fall into very strange behavioral patterns. While they may or may not have a subconscious desire to be abused, there can be many counter-intuitive things going on mentally that are keeping them in that situation. After all, all we're really trying to do is survive. The mind doesn't know what a "destructive behavior pattern" is, only that it's keeping what it believes is equilibrium.

Well, its complicated because the boundary between the conscious and the subconscious isn't as bright as we would like for it to be.

There are three things I think we relegate to the subconscious that don't really belong there.
1. Aspects of the self relegated to "the shadow" that don't comport with the story we tell ourselves about who we are. Which is fair enough, that's pretty heavy stuff.
2. Denial/Dissociation, which as you know refers to things we are perfectly aware of, and we are just pretending not to be. Sorry, but that's just immature.
3. Emotions that are not accessible to symbolic representation. To give one example, the content of our dreams. You wake from a dream that is so horrifying or so beautiful you find yourself weeping, and yet it is very difficult to express in words exactly what happened there. Pretending not to be aware of these things is a particular affliction of modern man; it hasn't always been that way, and it doesn't have to be that way.

The latter example means something. I mean, clearly we all think the content of our dreams comes bubbling up from the subconscious. But, are we not then aware of it? The answer is yes, but we are not compelled to take note of it, and most of us don't.

At any rate, I say sort that stuff out first. Stop playing games with oneself, and then we can start talking about the subconscious.

Duh, although I'll bet even you can't tell me the relative amount of blood flow going to your amygdala compared with your orbitofrontal cortex right this second, can ya. Or, if my response is pissing you off, why.

We know what the limbic system is, so we don't need to use the term "Id" anymore. But that doesn't mean Freud was wrong, ducy

Religion? Music? ****ing?

Do you listen to music? Can you tell me why? If you can't, why do you listen to it?

The shadow self is pretty interesting stuff. Where did you find out about/ read up on the concept?

Not much available that is readily accessible. Fortunately, when he was old, Carl Jung had a dream in which he saw himself as an orator addressing a great multitude. Next morning he called his publisher and said he intended to write a book for the people to read. He called some of his students to help and he began writing the first chapter, in English. He died ten days after completing his piece. That book, "Man and his Symbols," is widely available. If you're of a certain age, everyone you know read this in college. Get it cheap at the used bookstore. Oh (sigh) download it from Amazon.

There's a lot more, a way lot more about the shadow in art. Remember, these Jungian symbols are deeply emotional, often defy words, and sometimes art strikes closer to the heart of things.

The classic/original shadow flick is "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde." Every doppelganger movie ever is about the shadow, eg "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," always kinda liked the Donald Sutherland version. I'm also reminded of that great Star Trek episode where Kirk had to battle evil Kirk.

Mike Cahill has Jungian themes in mind in both of his feature length films. "Another Earth" takes this on directly. It has kind of a science-fictiony underlay but it is one of the most emotional and moving films I've ever seen, it's sweet, honest and gorgeous.

Cahills "I Origins," which is out on video now, isn't as specifically about the shadow, but it's relevant if you remember that you can cram good things into the shadow as well as bad things, especially if you have poor self-esteem.

"I Origins" reminds me quite a bit of "Vanilla Sky," which is kind of a video primer on Jungian symbols.

Note the use of the mirror in both "Vanilla Sky" and "Another Earth." The mirror is a deep symbol, the antecedents of which I suspect preceded the technology. I imagine some cave man pitched a fit when his buddy drew a picture on the wall and said, "that's you!" The taboo against regarding the self arises, I suspect, out of a fear that in so doing we will no longer be able to hide the contents of the shadow from ourselves.

Kinda sad huh. We are afraid of our own shadow.

These days, you can make your own movie when you play video games. If you've played through "Fallout New Vegas" twice, I'll bet you played at least once as your shadow self.