Curiosity makes us not only read other people’s correspondence, peep through the keyhole, but also unravel the mysteries of history, explore the Universe and the depths of the unconscious. But will the moment come when all the secrets will finally be revealed? Psychoanalyst Andrei Rossokhin reflects on this.
“There is nothing secret that would not become obvious, nor hidden that would not become known” — this biblical saying from the Gospel of Luke was designed to protect a person from wrong actions that are forbidden from the point of view of religion, morality, and ethics. And Viktor Dragunsky’s story “The Secret Becomes Revealed,” published half a century ago, has become a help in education for many modern parents: the story about Denis Korablev and porridge thrown out the window conveys to the child the idea that it is useless to hide what has been done.
But how true is this maxim, at least in the context of psychic reality? Let’s imagine an extreme situation: a child believes that all his thoughts, experiences for parents are an open book. There is not even a corner of the inner world, which, in his view, would not be controlled by his parents. In this case, he does not have his own space at all and he cannot develop as a person. At best, it will be like the parents, a reflection of their expectations.
The other extreme is when the child is convinced for sure that no one will ever know about his secrets. This means that everything is allowed to him, there are no restrictions! These polar examples show that the play of the secret and the obvious creates boundaries, the very norms and rules that each of us faces.
An adult realizes that he can allow himself much more secret than in childhood.
First, the parents set the framework, then the social environment, then we rethink them and create our own boundaries. Inside them, we can hide something: fantasies, feelings, desires — this is our personal, this is an important part of the inner world, without which there is no our «I».
An adult realizes that he can allow himself much more secret than in childhood. The child needs to share with adults in order to get feedback, assessment: is it possible to feel, do, desire what I desire? An adult is able to answer these questions for himself. His secret is more. And it is important to protect him even from loved ones. If there is nothing secret between husband and wife, the family consists of the same people. Perhaps life with its reflection suits someone. But it has nothing to do with the union of equal people who, by definition, are different.
The more the obvious wins back from the secret, the more unknowable depths are exposed in it.
Of course, some facts are revealed: family “skeletons in the closet”, betrayals, forgeries … But what prompted a person to this or that act will never become completely clear. Neither he nor his psychoanalyst will know the whole truth.
Freud, in his lecture “Introduction to Psychoanalysis,” has the phrase: “Where the It was, the “I” should become. It is assumed that the «I» (consciousness, explicit) will replace the It (unconscious, secret). But this is an illusion, we can only approach some kind of understanding of the unconscious, build hypotheses. Our inner universe is as infinite and unknowable as the outer universe, like the mysteries of history, black holes or the mystery of the origin of man.
And this is a colossal resource for development. Otherwise, we would have reached the limit of knowledge at some point and would have lost all meaning to live on. The fantasies, ideas and conflicts born of mystery enrich us and make us discover. But the more the obvious wins back from the secret, the more unknowable depths are exposed in it. And this dialogue will never be completed.