Erwartung

anxiety’s expectation dimension in psychoanalytic treatment

Abstract

Based on Freudian thought, Lacan was able to locate a certain relationship between anxiety and expectation, highlighting the German term Erwartung. Considering this, the present study aims to investigate the relationship between anxiety and expectation as developed in Jacques Lacan’s teaching. To this end, the specific guiding thread of this issue present in Lacan’s teaching was revisited. Thus, anxiety is considered to bear a potential solution through its dimension of expectation. It is not about avoiding, at all costs, any relation to desire, as in escape; nor about being entirely incapable of doing anything about it, as in the case of helplessness. Therefore, the Erwartung character of anxiety enables a support in relation to desire. Thus, psychoanalytic treatment can be thought of as a passage from helplessness to anxiety, the latter understood in its relationship with expectation.