Why Can’t We Sleep?
Insomnia is often described in practical terms — screen exposure, poor routine, racing thoughts. But for many, these explanations don’t go far enough. Even when the conditions are perfect, sleep refuses to arrive.
From a psychoanalytic perspective, sleep is more than a biological need — it marks a kind of letting go. And for some, that letting go provokes anxiety. The night can become a time when something difficult presses forward: intrusive thoughts, unresolved tensions, a sense of something waiting.
In this way, insomnia may be less about bad habits, and more about what emerges when the day recedes — when speech stops, distractions end, and the subject is left with whatever has not yet been worked through. The body resists rest not out of choice, but because something remains unspoken, unprocessed, or unlocated.
In therapy, we don’t impose routines or techniques. We listen to the form sleep disturbance takes — how it appears, when it began, and what it may be circling around. For many, this leads to meaningful change. Sleep begins to return not by force, but as something permitted again — once what interrupts it has been heard.
For more information on our therapy for sleep anxiety and insomnia, vist the link below.
Therapy for Insomnia DublinRecommended Reading:
Why Can’t We Sleep? (2019). Darian Leader
Counselling
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