When Panic Appears Without Warning
Panic often arrives abruptly — a surge of dread, shortness of breath, a racing heart, a feeling that something is catastrophically wrong. Many describe it as coming from nowhere, with no identifiable trigger.
Psychoanalytic work suggests that panic often arises at the point where structure fails — when the coordinates that normally organise a person’s experience momentarily collapse. What was previously manageable becomes overwhelming, as something without a name or place forces itself into experience.
It may follow a rupture: the end of a relationship, a shift in identity, or an encounter with something unexpected in the Other’s gaze.
At times, panic surfaces precisely when a person is closest to something they’ve unconsciously been trying to avoid — whether responsibility, proximity, or a long-disavowed truth.
In psychoanalytic therapy, the aim is not to pathologise panic, but to locate something of its function and formation. Through speaking, many come to recognise something that was once obscure, and to re-establish a structure where panic no longer emerges in the same way.
For more information on how we approach treating panic attacks visit the link below.
Panic Attack TreatmentRecommended Reading:
Lacan. Anxiety: Seminar X. Edited by Jacques-Alain Miller (2014)
Counselling
Eating Disorders & Body Dysmorphia