The first psychological healing novel written by a psychoanalyst
Set in modern-day Korea, in this voice-driven novel, two women face each other: a hikikomori—a reclusive adult who has withdrawn from social life—who has closed her door and refuses to step out into the world, and a psychological counsellor sitting in front of that door.
Goh Ah-jin, a psychoanalysis therapist suffering from long-standing nightmares, is visited by a young man who asks her to ‘save us’. The man feels that his older sister, who lives with him, is going to kill someone, either herself or her mother. The man earnestly asks her to visit him to counsel his older sister, who has not been out of the apartment for five years. The only time in a day she gets out of her room is when her mother is out for work. For some reason, Woo-young does not want to be with her mother in the same room. Ah-jin is unusually agitated and strangely enough, she cannot turn down these siblings. She breaks the rule of not doing in-person visiting counseling and promises to go to see his sister, Woo-young, just three times.
Before Ah-jin came to her home, other people just tried to force Woo-young’s door open and to put her in hospital. But Ah-jin was different. Woo-young becomes curious and fond of Ah-jin, who firmly sends her noisy mother away, saying that she didn’t come because Woo-young wanted her to, so there is no reason for Woo-young to open her door and meet her. Ah-jin is not in a hurry, and she only tries to understand Wooyoung as she is beyond the closed door. As the three visiting sessions go, Woo-young opens the door to Ah-jin’s heart by showing her paintings she drew herself. Meanwhile, Ah-jin goes to see her therapist regularly, trying to find out what is really behind her nightmares. As a child, her younger brother got abducted, and it left Ah-jin and her parents with irreversible trauma. Along with the sessions with Woo-young, her memories start opening the door to her childhood and the truth about her pain.
On one hand, this deeply moving and real novel about childhood trauma shows how the two middle-aged women finally discover what triggered their trauma. But on the other hand, You Opened The Door reads like a thriller that keeps readers on the edge of their seats.