Sometimes nothing is obviously wrong.
Work is going reasonably well. A relationship may be stable. Life may look very different from what it once did. Perhaps we have achieved something we worked hard for, or finally reached a point we had imagined would make us feel settled. And yet, something remains.
A sense of dissatisfaction.
A feeling that something is missing.
Sometimes it is difficult even to explain what that something might be.
We may find ourselves thinking:
Why don’t I feel happier?
Is there something wrong with me?
Why can’t I simply enjoy what I have?
These questions can be accompanied by guilt. After all, if things are going well, shouldn’t we feel satisfied? Psychoanalysis approaches this experience without assuming that dissatisfaction necessarily means that something has gone wrong. Instead, it can ask another question:
What is it that we are looking for when we imagine that something will finally make us feel complete?
“I’ll be happy when…”
We often organise our lives around a future moment of satisfaction.
I’ll be happy when I find the right person.
I’ll feel confident when I get the job.
I’ll finally relax when I have enough money.
Things will feel different when I move.
I’ll be satisfied when I become the person I want to be.
There is nothing unusual about having goals or wanting our circumstances to change. But sometimes something interesting happens when we reach the moment we had imagined.
We get the job.
We enter the relationship.
We move to the new place.
We achieve the thing we had been working toward.
And then, after a while, the feeling returns.
Something is still missing.
The object we had imagined would provide satisfaction has not disappeared. We may still value it. We may even be grateful for it. But it has not produced the lasting sense of completion we expected. This can be confusing because we often imagine desire as a straightforward movement:
I don’t have something → I want it → I obtain it → I am satisfied.
Human desire is rarely so simple.
Getting what we want
There can be an important difference between getting what we want and finding satisfaction in what we obtain. We might spend years pursuing something and then discover that having it does not feel the way we imagined. This does not necessarily mean that we chose the wrong thing. Nor does it mean that we are incapable of appreciating what we have.
It may point to something more fundamental about desire itself. We often imagine that the object we want contains the satisfaction we are looking for. But once we obtain the object, desire does not necessarily disappear.
It moves.
Another possibility appears.
Another goal becomes important.
Another relationship becomes the focus of our attention.
Another version of ourselves begins to seem necessary.
The question becomes less about which object will finally satisfy me and more about what keeps desire moving from one object to another.
What are we actually seeking?
This can be difficult to answer because we often know what we want without knowing what we are seeking through it. Someone might say:
“I want a relationship.”
But what would the relationship give them?
To feel loved?
To feel chosen?
To avoid being alone?
To become someone in another person’s eyes?
To finally feel that they are enough?
Another person might say:
“I want to be successful.”
But what would success mean?
Recognition?
Security?
Freedom?
The feeling of being valued?
Proof that they have become someone?
There is no single answer. And the point is not to discover a hidden answer that can finally explain everything. Rather, these questions can begin to reveal that what we consciously say we want can be connected to something more difficult to articulate. We may pursue an object while unconsciously asking something of it that no object can completely provide.
The problem with trying to eliminate dissatisfaction
When dissatisfaction appears, our first response is often to try to get rid of it. We look for something else.
Another relationship.
Another job.
Another achievement.
Another purchase.
Another change.
Sometimes these changes are necessary and meaningful. There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting one’s circumstances to be different. But there are moments when the search itself begins to repeat. We obtain something, feel satisfied for a while, and then discover the same sense of incompleteness somewhere else. The temptation is to conclude:
I just haven’t found the right thing yet.
Psychoanalysis might pause at this point. Not to tell us that we should stop wanting. And not to tell us that dissatisfaction is something we simply have to accept. But to ask:
What happens in the movement from one object to another?
What are we expecting the next thing to provide?
And what happens when it doesn’t?
Desire is not simply a problem to solve
From a psychoanalytic perspective, desire cannot simply be reduced to a list of things we need to acquire. There is something about desire that exceeds the objects through which we try to satisfy it. This is one reason psychoanalysis is interested in the experience of something being missing.
The feeling of lack can be uncomfortable. We may experience it as evidence that our lives are incomplete, or that we have somehow failed to become who we should be. But psychoanalysis does not necessarily regard this lack as a defect. There is a difference between saying:
“Something is missing, therefore something is wrong with me.”
And asking:
“What does this sense of something missing have to do with my desire?”
The second question changes the position from which we approach the experience. It does not immediately demand that the feeling disappear. It allows us to become curious about it.
When satisfaction does not close the question
Sometimes the most revealing moment is not when we don’t get what we want. It is when we finally get it.
The relationship begins.
The promotion arrives.
The goal is achieved.
The uncertainty is resolved.
And yet the question remains.
Perhaps this is why satisfaction can be so complicated. We can experience genuine pleasure and still want something else. We can love someone and still experience dissatisfaction. We can appreciate our lives and still feel that something is missing. These things do not necessarily contradict one another.
The human subject is not simply a machine that moves from need to satisfaction. There can remain a gap between what we consciously want and what we find ourselves desiring. And it is sometimes within this gap that something of our particular way of being in the world begins to emerge.
What can psychoanalytic therapy offer?
Psychoanalytic therapy does not begin from the promise that it will provide the thing that will finally make a person satisfied. Nor does it attempt to convince someone that they should simply be grateful for what they already have.
Instead, it offers a space in which experiences of dissatisfaction, desire, uncertainty and repetition can be spoken about. Sometimes a person arrives knowing exactly what they want. Sometimes they arrive because they no longer know what they want. Both can become meaningful starting points.
Through speech, it may become possible to listen differently to what has been taken for granted: the things we repeatedly pursue, the expectations we place on others, the disappointments that return, and the moments when achieving what we wanted does not produce what we imagined.
The aim is not necessarily to find the perfect object or finally eliminate the feeling of something missing. It may be to come into a different relationship with the questions that have been organising our desire.
Perhaps the question is not “How can I finally be satisfied?”
We often imagine that the solution to dissatisfaction is to find the thing that will finally satisfy us. But perhaps the more interesting question is not:
“What do I need to obtain so that I can finally feel complete?”
Perhaps it is:
“What is it that keeps me moving toward something I imagine will make me complete?”
This is not a question that can necessarily be answered immediately. And perhaps it does not need to be.Sometimes the beginning of change is not finding the answer, but allowing the question to become one’s own.
Because even when things are going well, something may continue to move beneath what we consciously think we want. And it may be there, in that movement, that something about our desire can begin to be heard.
The Underthought | Psychoanalysis Practice
Psychoanalytic therapy offers a space to speak about what has become difficult in your life and to listen differently to what emerges.
In-person sessions in Sydney and online across Australia.
