How to understand anxiety?

To understand anxiety, it is important to first grasp the concept of the “Big Other.” In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the Big Other represents the symbolic order, the system of social rules, cultural expectations, language, and even the unconscious authority in our heads that shapes who we are and what we desire. It is like an invisible authority that determines what we should want, who we should be, and how we should behave. Anxiety arises precisely because we do not know what this Big Other truly wants from us.

Imagine you are an insect but you don’t know if you are wearing a male or female mask. You encounter a large female insect known for eating the male after mating. If you are the male, you are in danger; if you are the female, you are safe. But you don’t know which one you are. This uncertainty,  “Am I the male or the female?”, symbolizes the exact core of anxiety. You don’t know if you are safe or doomed. This female insect represents the Big Other, the one whose desire you must face but cannot fully understand or predict. Anxiety arises from not knowing, from sensing that you are entangled with a powerful Other whose desire might consume or destroy you.

This dynamic can also be seen in the relationship between a child and their primary caregiver. The child is confronted with the caregiver’s overwhelming and often confusing, incoherent desire, it’s a desire that can feel both protective and threatening. For example, a child may feel anxious if they see their parents undressing or behaving as adults in ways the child cannot comprehend, or if a single parent frequently brings home different partners.

Similarly, a child who hears ambiguous or inappropriate sexual remarks from a parent, or one whose caregiver is emotionally unstable and prone to excessive crying, may also experience anxiety. In these situations, the caregiver, who should provide a safe and containing environment, instead becomes a source of danger and confusion. The child wonders: What does the Other want from me? Am I safe or at risk? This question: “what does the Other want from me?”, lies at the heart of anxiety.

Imagine holding a delicate vase you believe to be perfect, only to discover a hidden crack that threatens to break it. The fear of breakage creates anxiety. Similarly, the neurotic recoils from the Other’s demand, trying to protect the ego’s fragile image from exposure. However, not everyone reacts this way. The pervert, in Lacanian terms, responds differently. Instead of fearing the Other’s demand, the pervert embraces it and even finds pleasure in it. The pervert willingly becomes the instrument of the Other’s desire, not resisting but actively embodying the role the Other demands. This allows the pervert to transform what might be threatening into a source of jouissance, an intense enjoyment or pleasure. In this way, the pervert positions themselves as the means through which the Other attains satisfaction, confirming and subverting the Other’s desire simultaneously.

The connection between anxiety and desire

To truly understand anxiety, we must explore the deep connection between anxiety and desire, especially as Jacques Lacan explains it. At the core of Lacan’s thought is the idea of lack,  a fundamental emptiness or gap within us that creates a feeling that something is missing. This sense of lack is not just a negative absence; it is also the source of desire. Desire springs from this feeling of incompleteness. It is what drives us forward, pushing us to seek, to want, and to reach for something beyond ourselves.

Imagine desire as a fire fueled by a missing piece inside us. Without that missing piece, the fire dies out. Lacan tells us that when this lack disappears, when there is nothing left to want or desire, anxiety appears in its most intense form.

This might sound strange at first.

We often think anxiety comes from wanting too much or fearing to lose something, but Lacan shows us the opposite: anxiety comes when there is no longer a gap, no longer a lack. When we feel “complete,” the anxiety rushes in.

Let me give you an example. Imagine you deeply desire a new car. You long for it, think about it, maybe even save money to buy it. This longing keeps you moving, gives you a goal. This new car can be seen as what Lacan calls an “object a” , an object of desire, a kind of symbolic fulfillment of that inner lack. But what happens when you finally have the car? That momentary possession fills the lack, if only briefly. The fire of desire dies down for a moment. Surprisingly, this can lead for some to a sudden spike in anxiety, the fear or discomfort that arises because the desire no longer fuels you. You might feel restless, empty, or dissatisfied. To escape this, you might jump from one desire to another: a new phone, a new gadget, a new experience. Each new object temporarily fills the gap, but only momentarily, because the fundamental lack remains.

The antidote to anxiety

This is why Lacan says that desire is the antidote to anxiety. Desire keeps the lack open, alive, and moving. If the lack were ever truly filled or closed, anxiety would erupt in its most unbearable form. It is this constant movement, this ongoing sense of not having enough, that allows us to function, to engage with life. Without it, we risk falling into despair, depression, or an unbearable boredom.

For example, consider someone who has lost all desire. They no longer long for anything, no longer dream or hope. This person may experience deep anxiety or feelings of depression because the structure of desire that once kept their psychic life alive has collapsed. Similarly, Lacan notes that people with psychotic tendencies often struggle with boredom, they need to keep busy constantly to avoid the terrifying confrontation with the emptiness within themselves. When boredom strikes and desire is absent, anxiety rushes in.

Another important point Lacan makes is that this lack, this desire, always points us toward the Other: the social world, language, and the symbolic order that we are born into and which shapes us. The lack makes us call out to the Other: Who can fill this emptiness inside me? Which knowledge, which person, which experience can answer my deep questions? But here lies the paradox: this lack can never truly be filled by the Other. No book, no person, no thing can provide a final, complete answer. Attempts to fill the lack completely only provoke anxiety, because they confront the impossible task of closure.

This means the lack must remain open. We have to accept that there is no final, closed solution to our desire, to our questions, to what it is that you or the other wants, the gap must simply be “there,” allowed to exist. This openness creates a space where anxiety can lessen because we stop demanding impossible completeness. Moreover, desire is not only our own; it is also the desire of the Other. When we recognize that the Other also has a lack, an open desire, the Other becomes less threatening, less demanding. There is a shared vulnerability, a shared incompleteness.

When the lack dissapears

In Lacanian terms, lack is fundamental to our experience of desire and self. When the lack is gone, it doesn’t mean that we feel fulfilled or whole. Rather, it means that something vital has been taken away from us, usually by the Other (the big “Other” in Lacan’s theory, which represents society, language, and the symbolic order). The Other demands something from us, and our ego gives it. When the lack disappears this way, when we feel overwhelmed, suffocated, with no room to breathe, this state is what we call anxiety.

Lacan builds on Freud’s ideas and reminds us that from the earliest stages of life, we experience ourselves as fragmented. As babies, we do not perceive our body as a unified whole. Instead, we feel disconnected pieces, limbs and sensations that we cannot control or fully coordinate. This early fragmented experience does not vanish entirely when we grow up; it is repressed and hidden but can resurface during moments of anxiety and insecurity.

This sense of fragmentation links closely to Freud’s concept of the “uncanny” (das Unheimliche), which Lacan associates with the split subject or the divided self. The uncanny refers to something that feels both familiar and strange at the same time. It is a haunting sense of recognition, but with a disturbing twist. Imagine looking in a mirror and seeing a version of yourself that looks almost right, but something is off. It is like a ghostly double, a distorted shadow of who you are. This feeling of the uncanny can trigger deep anxiety.

A modern example of the uncanny can be found in the “Uncanny Valley” effect in robotics and animation. When a robot or animated character looks almost human but not quite perfect, it does not fascinate us; instead, it triggers discomfort and fear. This is because the near-human appearance activates that strange, unsettling feeling that something is wrong. Similarly, the uncanny in our psyche provokes anxiety because it reminds us of the fragmented, imperfect self that we carry within.

We also encounter this strange feeling in dreams. Many anxious dreams, like running but never moving forward or suddenly floating while descending stairs, echo that primitive experience of the fragmented body. These dreams bring back early memories of being incomplete and out of control, memories buried deep in the unconscious.

Lacan takes these experiences further by thinking of anxiety not just as an emotion, but as a spatial experience, something that happens in the dimension of space and distance. He asks: how close can we be to anxiety before it overwhelms us? And how far must we be before it loses its meaning altogether? Anxiety exists in a fragile balance between closeness and distance, between self and other. For example, in social situations, if someone stands too close, we might feel uneasy or threatened; but if they stay too far away, we may feel lonely or abandoned.

This notion of distance is crucial to how we experience the uncanny and our divided subjectivity. There is always an “opaque distance” between us and those we feel closest to. We may know our loved ones well, but never completely. Likewise, we recognize ourselves only through a filtered lens, the image we present is never fully aligned with who we truly are inside.

Lacan’s theory of the split subject and the uncanny offers profound insight into how we experience ourselves. We are never fully united with ourselves. There is always a gap between our embodied reality and the symbolic self we present to the world. This gap ,this split , is the source of our insecurities, anxieties, and the unsettling feelings that occasionally surface in everyday life.

In sum, anxiety arises not because we lack something in the usual sense, but because the very lack that sustains our desire is taken away or closed off by the Other’s demand. This closing of lack leads to a suffocating feeling of being overwhelmed, a loss of the vital space needed to desire and breathe. The split in ourselves, between what we are and how we appear, between the fragmented body and the symbolic self, creates a tension that constantly threatens to erupt as anxiety. Recognizing this can help us understand why anxiety is so difficult to control and why it feels both deeply personal and strangely alienating at the same time. It is the anxiety of being caught between the known and the unknown, the familiar and the strange, the self and the Other.

To clarify, think about a child who cries because they are hungry. When the child is fed, the immediate need , hunger, disappears. But what remains is not a simple absence of hunger; there remains a longing, a desire for something beyond basic satisfaction. This residual desire is not about survival but about something more profound: the presence of the Other. The Other is the source of desire, the one who gives us meaning, attention, and recognition, and who becomes the basis for our desire. This is why desire always involves the Other; it is relational.

The role of fantasy here is also crucial because fantasy supports desire by providing images and narratives that allow desire to live and to move. Fantasy sustains the tension between what is lacking and what is desired, allowing us to continue to want, even in the absence of an immediate object. For example, someone who feels lonely might fantasize about meeting a perfect friend who always understands them and makes them feel safe. Even though this friend doesn’t exist right now, the fantasy keeps their wish for connection alive.

Central to this dynamic is what Lacan calls the “paternal function.” Importantly, this function has nothing to do with biological fatherhood or anatomy. Instead, it is a subjective position anyone can occupy, regardless of their gender. The paternal function can even be invoked by the mother, for example, when she says to the child, “Wait until your father sees what you did...” This third party represents the symbolic order, the set of laws and structures that govern society and human interaction.

The paternal function is crucial because it introduces what Lacan calls the “no” of the father, a prohibition or limitation essential for the child’s development within the symbolic order. The foundational structure of society is law, and the foundational structure of law is prohibition. The primary prohibition in society is the prohibition of enjoyment or “jouissance.” This prohibition is what makes pleasure so intense, it is forbidden, and thus highly desirable.

For example, if someone feels intense desire for something forbidden, like an affair, it is often precisely the fact that it’s ‘off limits’ that makes it so appealing. The rule against it creates the excitement. The paternal function enforces this prohibition. In Lacanian terms, the technical word for this is “castration.” The act the father figure performs is a prohibitive, castrating act.

When this act is missing, when the paternal function fails to intervene and cut off the imaginary phallus (which symbolizes the child’s illusion of omnipotence and total satisfaction), the result is anxiety or perverse desires, depending on how the subject handles this failure.

Anxiety appears in the place where lack normally exists, where desire is usually developed. For example, when someone has never learned to accept not getting everything they want, they might feel anxious instead of simply wanting. Instead of thinking ‘I’d like that but I can’t have it now,’ they feel panic or restlessness because they can’t handle the feeling of lacking something

When anxiety takes over, something else happens: something different fills the space of lack, and that lack is removed or denied. Lacan explains that something appears where in fact nothing should be.

The paternal function should make a cut and leave a gap or barrier between the child and the primary caregiver. Anxiety is what happens when the primary caregiver crosses this barrier and tries to fill it with something new. What this does is effectively disable the child’s access to the object-cause of their desire by denying the child the experience of lack.

For example, imagine a mother who gives her child everything before they even ask. If the child is hungry, she feeds them immediately. If they’re bored, she entertains them right away. She never lets them feel frustrated or wait for anything. By doing this, she removes any space for the child to feel their own need or desire. Later, the child might feel anxious because they never learned to handle wanting something they can’t have.

This is what Lacan means when he says that anxiety is a “lack of lack.” The very lack that would give you breathing space for your own desire to emerge is taken away, and you are overwhelmed instead by the desire of the “big Other.” There is no room left for your own subjectivity or opinion; your ownness disappears, replaced entirely by the Other’s desire.

To come back to the example from earlier, where the child whose mother never says “no” or sets limits but always tries to anticipate and fulfill every wish immediately: instead of learning to desire by understanding that something is missing and must be sought, the child experiences a kind of suffocation. There is no lack, so no desire can form. The child is flooded with the mother’s desires and needs, with no room to develop an independent will. This results in anxiety, not because something is lost, but because the child cannot access the space of lack that fuels desire.

Conclusion

Lacan’s point is: anxiety is triggered by an object you cannot escape. It is the intrusion of something that should not be there, the disappearance of the essential gap that allows desire to live. This creates a suffocating anxiety because you are caught in the desire of the Other with no breathing room to be your own subject.

Understanding this intricate relationship between desire, lack, the paternal function, and anxiety opens a path to helping those who suffer from anxiety. By restoring the space for lack and desire, by allowing the subject to reclaim their own desire rather than being swallowed by the Other’s, a client can begin to breathe again, to live with the tension of wanting without being overwhelmed by it. This is the true alchemy of desire as a cure for anxiety.