Pandora's Box: On The Function Of Secrecy In Psychoanalysis

One of the chapters of Herbert Strean's Behind the Couch. Revelations of a Psychoanalyst invokes the story of Mr. X, a man who entered analysis with the statement that he would tell everything to the analyst, except his name: 'Just put me down on your list as Mr. X'.[1] This could be a pure Freudian case-history, if it were not for the observation that Strean, despite his overwhelming curiosity and eagerness to know, does not force his analysand to unveil the secret of his name.…