The knowledge that disturbs

There is a particular kind of ignorance that keeps us safe, that allows us to function under the illusion that everything is in its place. It's the not-knowing that lets us sleep peacefully, that allows us to keep our certainties and defenses intact. But psychoanalysis is not interested in preserving this artificial peace. On the contrary, it comes to disturb it, to shake the foundations of our comfortable explanations about who we are.

What analysis offers is not reassuring knowledge that can be packaged in self-help manuals. It is a knowledge that destabilizes, that confronts us with the truths we prefer to keep buried. It promises neither harmony nor balance, but rather a turbulent encounter with our own desire, that stranger who dwells within us and whom we never fully know.

This uncomfortable knowledge comes at a price: the loss of our most cherished illusions about ourselves. But it is precisely in this loss where the possibility of a more authentic encounter with who we are resides. Psychoanalysis invites us on this disturbing journey, not to find definitive answers, but to learn to inhabit our own questions.