“What if I am your object of desire?”: A qualitative analysis of individuals’ anxiety experiences in social environments

Date

2024-6

Author

Baydar, Münevver Zuhal

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Since the existence of humanity, anxiety has been a longstanding topic of examination in literature, studied by philosophers, writers, poets, psychoanalysts, and psychologists. In contrast, in the mainstream psychology literature of recent years, anxiety has lost its depth and is addressed with a symptomatic approach. Therefore, this study aims to delve into the intricacies of anxiety. Lacan expressed that the subject is structured based on the Other’s gaze and that anxiety emerges from a sense of uncertainty regarding the subject’s position in the Other’s gaze. Therefore, anxiety is related to the threat of being reduced to an object of the Other’s gaze and being swallowed by the Other. Thus, Lacan, unlike Freud, stated that anxiety is not about the possibility of being castrated but the possibility of not being castrated. Focusing on the lived experiences of individuals who experience anxiety in social environments, this study aims to investigate the anxiety experiences from the Lacanian psychoanalytic theory. Semi-structured interviews with eight male participants were subjected to a Reflexive Thematic Analysis. Demonstrated by the analysis, three superordinate themes were created: Family Relationships as the Antecedents of Anxiety, The Desire to be the Object of Other(s)’ Gaze, and The Struggles of Separation. The findings are interpreted within the context of Lacanian Psychoanalysis.

Subject Keywords

Anxiety, Gaze, Object a, Lacanian psychoanalysis, Reflexive thematic analysis

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/110045

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis