The Creative Power of Relatedness

We Have Been practicing psychoanalysis under the premise we share with Dr. Horney1 that “whatever the conditions are under which a child grows up, he will learn to cope with others in one way or another and he will probably acquire some skills. But there are forces in him which he cannot acquire or even develop by learning. The real self is a central inner force, common to all human beings and yet unique, which is the deep source of growth.”

It is generally agreed, however, that a human being is the result of relationships with others. What then is the self and how does it come into being? What are relationships? What do they consist of? And what is their influence on the growth of the individual?

Meaningful relationships consist of relatedness. All relatedness is meeting. Meeting means to come out in the fullness and nakedness of myself, to come forth unto the borderline of myself, up to my own boundaries, and go toward another human being.

By fullness, I mean all that I am and have; by nakedness the unrestricted, uncontrol led and unpremeditated condition. The concept of the coming forth of the self entails both the idea of the self and the assumption that the self has boundaries and can reach the edge in order to meet another person.

To quote the great contemporary scientist Dr. Robert Oppenheimer,2 “an indispensible, perhaps the indispensible element in giving meaning to the dignity of man and in making possible the taking of decision on the basis of honest conviction is the openness of man's mind and the openness of whatever media there are for the communion between man, free of repression and free even of that most pervasive restraint, that of status and hierarchy.”

It is therefore with an open mind that I should like to discuss the nature of human relatedness and its potentiality as a great source of strength, specifically for the therapeutic aspects of psychoanalysis. In so doing, I shall help myself to some philosophical and religious tenets, and borrow a few pi