The Wish to Know/The Wish Not to Know: Curiosity and the Primal Scene

ABSTRACT

This article explores the developmental experience of curiosity and how it relates to the primal scene. Bion’s concepts of K and –K, alpha function, and containment are used to think about the wish to know and the wish not to know (or to “titrate” knowing). Clinical vignettes trace the experience of curiosity as it plays out in the analytic relationship, and they illustrate instances when thinking becomes confused and boundaries collapse in response to “too much” information. Curiosity, when worked through, may become an analytic object, a vehicle for intimacy, and a possible third position between K and –K, one that leads the way toward creativity and play.

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Rachel Karliner

Rachel Karliner, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and candidate at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She has written and presented on symbolization in psychoanalytic treatment, the parent-child relationship, and play therapy. She is in private practice in New York City.