Curiosity vs Beliefs: The Battle for Reality and What This Means for Relationships and Development1

This article describes the development of the cognitive conscious mind, starting with the decision the baby makes to turn to face reality, which moves him from the pleasure principle to reality principle as described by Freud (1911b). It is argued that this cannot happen unless we postulate a third innate drive. Bion called this K, by which he meant the urge to know, but is called here “curiosity”, because this seems to capture the emotional experience of its activity. Only something like the curiosity drive can account for the two changes necessary to allow the space to move to the reality principle: the development of a primitive defence system that acts to decrease the emotional intensity of the drives, and the creation of an experience of internal mental space in which thinking can develop. However, these same, uniquely human, psychic developments that allow us to face reality also provide a template for processes that can distort reality and interfere with the capacity for thinking, essentially through producing unconscious beliefs.