Lying shields us from our vulnerability to our own unconscious desires, but also corrodes a shared reality. The liar wields the power to create their own reality free of uncertainty, writes Josh Cohen. 

Why do we lie? In one key respect, the psychoanalytic response to this venerable (and currently very urgent) question is broadly in line with other psychologies: we lie to evade the many and various unpleasant consequences of telling the truth. Lying to others can preserve us from the embarrassment of having values, tastes or desires that offend societal norms; lying to ourselves helps protect our favourable self-image. Beyond these defensive functions, lying can confer advantages over public and personal rivals and adversaries, in sex or business, art or politics.

But by placing conflict at the centre of our inner lives, psychoanalysis also enriches and complicates our understanding of lying. Freud proposed that our minds are a permanent battleground between the id, a reservoir of unbound and excessive desires both sexual and destructive, and the ego, the mental agency tasked with the recognising and navigating the claims of external reality.