Christopher Bollas and the Unthought Known: A Deep Dive into the History of an Idea That Changed Family Therapy
Tuesday, February 11, 2025.
Most theories in psychoanalysis focus on what we remember, what we repress, or what we try to forget. But Christopher Bollas took a different approach.
He asked:
What about the things we know, but have never consciously thought about?
What about the truths that shape our emotions and behaviors, even though they have never been fully articulated?
What happens to knowledge that is never hidden—but is also never spoken?
This led him to one of the most influential yet under-discussed ideas in modern psychoanalysis: the unthought known—a concept that helps explain intergenerational trauma, family dynamics, and the silent forces that shape our lives.
To fully grasp the power of this idea, we need to go back through the history of psychoanalysis and understand how Bollas built on, challenged, and expanded the theories of his predecessors.
The Intellectual Roots of the Unthought Known
Bollas did not develop his ideas in isolation. His work emerged from a long lineage of psychoanalytic thought, drawing from Freud, Klein, and Winnicott—but also radically reinterpreting their ideas.
Sigmund Freud and the Repressed Unconscious (1890s–1930s)
Freud’s greatest contribution to psychoanalysis was his theory of the unconscious—the idea that much of human behavior is driven by thoughts, feelings, and desires that have been repressed because they are too painful to confront.
According to Freud:
People bury traumatic experiences in the unconscious.
These repressed memories and desires manifest in neuroses, dreams, and slips of the tongue.
The goal of therapy is to bring these repressed elements into consciousness, where they can be processed and understood.
Bollas took issue with this framework.
He did not believe all unconscious material was actively repressed—he argued that some things never even made it to conscious awareness in the first place.
Unlike Freud, who saw the unconscious as a storehouse of repressed memories, Bollas saw it as a reservoir of emotional knowledge that had never been fully thought.
This was a subtle but radical departure.
Instead of focusing on what we have hidden from ourselves, Bollas was interested in what we feel and know without realizing it.
Melanie Klein and the Internal World of the Infant (1920s–1950s)
While Freud focused on the repression of memory and desire, Melanie Klein was more interested in how infants experience the world before they even develop language.
Klein argued that:
Babies do not have words for their experiences, but they feel them deeply.
Their emotions are raw, overwhelming, and absorbed without reflection.
These early feelings become the foundation of their internal world—shaping how they experience relationships for the rest of their lives.
Bollas built on this idea, proposing that:
We don’t just repress difficult experiences—we also absorb experiences in ways that never become fully conscious.
A child who grows up in a house full of anxiety will “know” anxiety as a way of being, but may never articulate it as a distinct feeling.
These early experiences shape us not through direct memory, but through the atmosphere they create in our emotional lives.
In this way, Bollas expanded Klein’s work, moving beyond the idea of repression and into the more subtle realm of implicit emotional knowledge.
Donald Winnicott and the Role of the Mother (1940s–1970s)
One of Bollas’ biggest influences was Donald Winnicott, a British psychoanalyst known for his work on early childhood development and the “true self.”
Winnicott introduced the idea that:
Babies do not just need food and shelter—they need a psychologically attuned caregiver to help them organize their emotional world.
The mother acts as a “container” for the baby’s emotions, helping the infant feel safe enough to explore their own internal world.
When this process fails—when a mother is emotionally unavailable or inconsistent—the child develops a “false self” to cope with the instability.
Bollas was deeply influenced by this.
He took Winnicott’s ideas about early relationships and applied them to the hidden knowledge we carry from childhood.
He proposed that:
Every child develops an emotional atmosphere based on the way their caregivers respond to them.
This atmosphere becomes so deeply ingrained that they may never consciously reflect on it—it simply becomes their “reality.”
For example, a child whose mother is chronically sad might absorb that sadness as their own, even if they never think about it in words.
This laid the groundwork for the unthought known—the idea that much of what we "know" about relationships, emotions, and self-worth was never explicitly taught, but was absorbed through experience.
Bollas’ Breakthrough: The Birth of the Unthought Known (1987)
By the time Bollas published The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Known in 1987, he had developed a completely new way of thinking about the unconscious.
He argued that:
Not all unconscious material is repressed (as Freud suggested).
Some knowledge is so fundamental, so deeply absorbed in early life, that we never even think about it—it just feels like reality.
The unthought known is the emotional knowledge that shapes us without ever being consciously articulated.
How This Changed Therapy
Bollas’ idea was revolutionary because it shifted the focus from:
“What have I repressed?” → “What do I feel but have never consciously thought?”
“What is hidden from me?” → “What have I absorbed so deeply that I don’t even recognize it as a belief?”
This made therapy not just about uncovering forgotten memories, but about bringing into awareness the silent emotional rules that have shaped a person’s life.
The Legacy of the Unthought Known
Bollas’ concept of the unthought known has had a lasting impact on multiple fields:
Psychoanalysis – Therapists now recognize that not all unconscious material is repressed—some of it has simply never been put into words.
Trauma Studies – The unthought known helps explain how intergenerational trauma is passed down even when families never discuss painful events.
Attachment Theory – His ideas align with research showing that early emotional environments shape lifelong attachment styles, even when people have no explicit memories of their early years.
His work has influenced modern approaches to therapy, neuroscience, and even philosophy, reshaping the way we understand human experience.
Why Bollas Still Matters Today
Christopher Bollas’ work challenges us to rethink what we know about ourselves and our families.
It forces us to ask:
What emotional truths have I absorbed without realizing it?
What patterns in my relationships feel “normal” simply because they are familiar?
What knowledge is shaping my life, even though I have never put it into words?
Because, as Bollas reminds us, not everything that shapes us is hidden.
Some truths are simply so fundamental that we never think to question them.
And once we begin to think about what we have always known, we gain the power to change it.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Bollas, C. (1987). The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Known. Columbia University Press.
Freud, S. (1915). The Unconscious. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud.
Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and Reality. Tavistock.