ABSTRACT
After outlining an historical survey of the meaning of secrets in psychoanalytic theory and technique, a developmental/clinical approach to secrets within a relational mode is considered. While, traditionally, harboring a secret in treatment has typically been considered a resistance, we expand a secret’s possible meanings by considering it as functioning in a relational matrix where it can be used not only to conceal but also as a bid for relationship. We describe several types of secrets that are differentiated by the role they play in negotiating the establishment and maintenance of relationships. Secrets exist on a continuum of mental health, ranging from a healthy and adaptive use to establish safe bonding with others to a relatively more dysfunctional use to withdraw from others and live in a solipsistically created internal world where others exist only under one’s omnipotent control. Clinical examples are utilized to illustrate these phenomena.
