Tell all the truth but tell it slant. . . The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind
Emily Dickinson
THE TRUTH is an installation by the artist Garth Kennedy in the Mechanical Art and Design Museum in Stratford-upon-Avon. It is in the form of a locked chest. As the viewer approaches, a key slowly turns, allowing the lid to open ever so slightly. A small hand is propelled through the gap, but, almost as soon as it appears, the hand withdraws and the chest snaps shut. Like truth itself, the hand has only a small opportunity to be seen before it is locked away in darkness again: see it, and it’s gone.
In a world that has become a battleground of “my fake news against yours”, we long for facts like thirsty travellers in the desert. But the idea that there might be such a thing as a simple, single truth is far from reality.
I have been reading Matthew D’Ancona’s 2016 book Post-Truth (Ebury Press). He argues that, in our reactive world of instant gratification, binary choices, and emotive language, we have increasingly less time for what is “honestly complex”: less appetite for nuance. Along with the elevation of individual perception as king, and the fear of being judged, this seems to have contaminated our culture.
As a trauma psychotherapist, I frequently observe how emotional truths can lie deeply buried: it’s a protective human mechanism. When this happens, it skews our view of the world. Emotional truth can be painful; so we bury it in order to survive and prevent greater pain.
In this sense, trauma and modern culture are not such distant cousins. Both foster environments in which truth can end up hidden — either by noise or by necessity. Whether in the psyche or in public life, truth becomes something that we instinctively avoid: too dangerous, too disruptive, too demanding.
YET, trauma can also mean that we operate from powerful or unshakeable convictions that trap and compel us. Steve, a medic, was neglected for long periods in his early life, then horribly abused by those whose job it was to care for him. He grew up with almost a survivalist imperative to look after others at any cost. He focused on what was required to become a doctor and try to make his patients better.
So, he pushed on, working huge numbers of extra hours, demanding total dedication and the self-sacrifice of his medical team, and, in so doing, lost sight of his own vulnerability and any real sense of his own needs: his buried emotional self. His trauma drove his conviction to succeed, yet, when things did not go well, he would be monstrous to those close to him.
His emotional truth — he was a hurting and terrified child inside — was cut off from his everyday consciousness, and yet at the same time fuelled everything he did. This vulnerable part was banished until, under huge stress, it appeared in his legendary tantrums.
At its core, psychotherapy respects subjective experience while holding a mirror to objective reality. That tension is a powerful force in our work with others. And I believe that it also has a contribution to make regarding the question how we examine truth in the contemporary world.
In a world saturated by urgency and polarised discourse, we too often privilege personal narrative over shared inquiry, and reaction over reflection. The powerful seem to have a blank cheque to do as they wish, with apparently less interest in consensus, perhaps to avoid the pain of complexity. Post-truth means being swept up by power rather than listening and learning together.
IT IS even possible that this age of extremes is itself fuelled by something like trauma. What evidence do we see? Just as trauma might rev someone up so that they go through life with the force of a wrecking ball and/or appear to be cut off from and disconnected from reality and rationality, so many of us end up in a fight-or-flight reactive mode — even those in positions of leadership.
This is a real difficulty. We currently have a crop of leaders who seem to have less ability to see complex nuance. We are in need of the calibre of leaders who are prepared to befriend their own emotional truths. If they do not, their unresolved emotional life — their pathology — may seep out in their motivations and actions, with the consequence that we are all the poorer. Examples of the politics of vengeance are all too frequent in the world today.
The world requires leaders whose self-reflection and calm objectivity enable them to focus on and seek out truth and reason, calmly and patiently, able to bracket their own agendas and biases.
I read that Pope Leo XIV was a favoured successor of Pope Francis partly because of his calm demeanour, capacity to listen, and clear head. We need those who have a capacity for some degree of objective thinking beyond their own agenda, and who see subtlety and nuance, and are not afraid to sift through complex truths to find the right course of action. Perhaps we long for leaders who do not need to be right, best, or first, but who have the patience and wisdom of Mandela, in his refusal to yield to any sort of impulse to retaliate or take revenge.
WHEN I reflect on these leadership qualities, I observe a dearth of them in current leaders. Is there a trend here? The psychologist Steve Taylor, in his book DisConnected (Iff Books, 2023), explores how numerous leaders from the 20th century onwards have emerged who are both blinded by personal power and disconnected from the care and well-being of others.
With a long view, Taylor writes that this partly may be about greater social mobility in recent centuries, and a gradual emergence of individualistic thinking rather than the more collaborative ways of living in primitive societies.
He also explores how many world leaders in recent decades have had significant terrifying and debilitating childhood experiences of trauma. Someone’s backstory matters. Do we need greater psychological checks and balances for our leaders? We certainly need leaders of integrity who are prepared to embrace what is honestly complex rather than those who treat truth as simplistic, and are self-seeking and partial.
So, the question returns: is truth buried or simply lost? The answer, I believe, is both. Trauma buries the truth to help us to survive, and contemporary culture fails to dig deep enough to retrieve it.
And yet, like the mechanical hand in Kennedy’s installation, truth still reaches out —briefly, urgently — before retreating again. We need to notice it. We need to train ourselves to be prepared to wait, to see its meaning unfold, and to face it, even when it dazzles. The truth can set us free.
Philippa Smethurst is a UKCP registered and BACP senior accredited psychotherapist. Her latest book, Twenty Ways to Break Free From Trauma: From brain hijacking to post-traumatic growth, is published by Jessica Kingsley.
