Elena Ferrante: 'What held me back from having therapy?'

The idea of telling an unknown person everything that passed through my mind felt like giving in to blackmail

I have never undergone psychoanalytic therapy, but I’ve always been on the point of doing it. What pushed me? Often a feeling of inadequacy. More often a feeling of excess, one that made me feel as if I had drunk so much water that I was drowning in it. And then a sense of permanent discontent, always stifled by my habit of good manners. And then the tendency to distance every desire that wasn’t consistent with the idea I had of myself. And finally, a faint unhappiness that wouldn’t go away – like minor joint pain that one learns to live with.

What, on the other hand, made me hold back? The idea of telling an unknown person, someone with no weight in my life, everything that passed through my mind. I had no wish to. It seemed like a violence that I was agreeing to submit to – devoutly paying for it. I felt I would be giving in to blackmail. I took for granted a sort of mute speech by the prospective analyst that went like this: I have the power to help you, but if you want me to exercise that power, you have to provide for me, at a fixed time, and in exchange for money, memories, thoughts, beliefs, everything, even the lies you tell.

Related: Elena Ferrante: ‘If you feel the urge to write, there’s no good reason to put it off’

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