The Place of Truth in Psychoanalysis: a Heideggerian Contribution

Abstract

Freud argued for a classical notion of truth as correspondence and thus founded psychoanalytic truth on a tension between an ‘inside the therapy room truth’ and an ‘outside the therapy room truth’. In certain settings, such as the forensic, this can result in various forms of truth coming into conflict. This is made more difficult when patients themselves struggle with simple truth telling. Psychoanalytic theorists have put forward various solutions to this dilemma and these are reviewed. The authors argue that Heidegger’s phenomenological notion of aletheia, of truth as a process of uncovering, helps to address these issues. In addition, it is noted that Heidegger argues that equiprimodially there is a negativity inherent to truth. This finitude in human being and understanding could ground an existential understanding of unconsciousness. There remains, however, a crucial dilemma in psychotherapeutic work with patients who are actively deceitful. The authors argue that for the purposes of therapeutic outcome, psychotherapists should remain open to this version of truth even if it explicitly contradicts other forms of truth.