Summary
The fear of abandonment is not simply the fear of losing someone, but the fear of losing access to oneself when the other serves as a guarantor of worth, coherence, and meaning. Some people become indispensable less for who they are and more for the structural function they perform: they reflect back a version of ourselves we struggle to sustain alone. This makes proximity feel vital, distance threatening, and silence dangerous. In the effort to keep the other close, one may slide into dependence, hypervigilance, and a pattern of self‑silencing.
Psychoanalysis addresses this dynamic by helping the person return to their own speech: to speak, and to reflect on whatever they find themselves saying. As one’s internal world becomes sayable and thinkable, the need for external guarantees lessens. The other no longer appears as a crutch or a judge, but as a presence one can approach freely. The fear of abandonment loosens—not because relationships become certain, but because one no longer depends on the other to sustain what has begun to hold from within.
The fear of abandonment is not merely the fear of being alone. One can be alone without feeling abandoned. The feeling of being abandoned is a felt void: as if my vitality depended entirely on someone else, someone who can switch the light within me on and off — suddenly, unpredictably, capriciously.
Why is the loss of the other so terrifying for some? What does this other make possible that feels impossible without them? How do certain people become so essential that, without them, one feels not just alone — but lost?
The Role of the other as Guarantor
The other we fear might abandon us is not just any other; it is not “the first person who showed up.” Something in them resonates with an inner need, an old wound, or an ideal that feels out of reach. And yet, paradoxically, the function they fulfill often matters more than who they are as individuals. In my clinical work, this “other” typically carries very specific traits for each person — markers that speak to a subjective history and make this particular figure feel uniquely necessary.
Often, this other functions almost like a mirror: a reflective surface that returns to me a version of myself I long to see — a more coherent, more capable, more lovable version. A similar figure, but slightly elevated. Not who I am, but who I wish I could be. Sometimes they embody the “better” or “ideal” version of myself; other times, they are someone from whom I expect something — reassurance, confirmation, a sense of completion, or the filling of a perceived gap. In their presence, I feel closer to an imagined wholeness.
Their presence reflects back an image that feels better than my own, and I become attached not only to them, but to the self I seem to become in their eyes.
This is why they become significant even if we do not know them well (sometimes it is someone who has only just entered our life). They make visible qualities in me that I cannot see on my own; they name aspects of me I would not know how to articulate alone; they give value where I see only inadequacy.
It is as if their word acts as a bridge between me and parts of myself I cannot reach. This makes their presence addictive-like: it gets me used to breathing through the lungs of the other. It generates dependence, and the threat of their absence is not merely the loss of company, but the risk that my access to myself collapses. Every oscillation of the other becomes a threat: a delayed reply, a different tone, and I plunge into anxiety.
As long as the other holds this guarantor function — of value, meaning, continuity — I can feel “switched on.” But if the other wavers or withdraws, the light they cast on me goes out. The fear of abandonment is therefore the fear of losing not only a presence, but a symbolic “prosthesis” with which I was sustaining my word and my worth.
It is not enough to say “learn to love yourself.” The issue is more radical and subtler. It is a matter of shifting from needing the other to guarantee you, to becoming able to sustain your own speech
The Vicious Circle of Fear
On a behavioral level, the constant worry about being left can manifest in obsessive-paranoid behaviors within relationships: continuous monitoring, constant demands for reassurance, tests of loyalty, and interpretations of every tiny signal. This dynamic becomes self-reinforcing and often ends up producing exactly what is most feared: the breakdown of the relationship.
One does everything to be desirable and to keep the partner close, to the extreme point of renouncing oneself, silencing one’s own voice. But by renouncing oneself, one “needs” the other even more: thus, the vicious circle is fed. “People‑pleasing” — sacrificing one’s own desires to please others — is a dysfunctional strategy that fuels codependence. Although it may seem useful to avoid conflict or maintain relationships, in the long run it generates frustration and resentment.
At the root lies a deep conviction: that one cannot manage alone, cannot take care of oneself, always needs someone to provide care. The self‑image is often devalued — incapable, mediocre, if not inept — while others are seen as superior and as holders of knowledge about life. In this framework, every loss or distance becomes confirmation of negative fantasies: “If they left, it’s because I did something wrong. Because I have no worth, because I am not enough.”
It is not necessarily the case that those who fear abandonment were traumatized or abandoned in the past. Sometimes, paradoxically, they were over‑cared for in a way that fostered passivity and were treated for a long time as “small,” immature, incapable. This prolonged narrative can deplete self‑esteem and initiative, solidifying a sense of personal worthlessness.
On the other hand, unpredictable and unexplained separations in childhood can leave the child without tools to make sense of absence. Unable to understand the adult’s perspective, the child may conclude that the other withdraws because they are not sufficiently desirable. A child is born dependent and narcissistically centered; they need to feel loved and, at the same time, to be able to give some minimal sense to separations. When the separation of the other is unpredictable, chaotic, or inexplicable, the most accessible interpretation is self‑blame.
A common example: a person enters a relationship and experiences a sudden blaze of vitality and confidence. Apparently, the other sees them, names them, values them. Soon, the other becomes indispensable, and every absence, every variation in their mood becomes a threat. The point is not the real or presumed intentions of the other, but recognizing the function that has been entrusted to them: to hold together what in me I do not yet feel held, to sustain my narcissism, to validate my being. It is this massive reliance — this delegation — that becomes the focus of analytic work.
Analytic Work: Speaking Without Guarantees
Many psychological approaches aim to reduce “dependence on the other” by strengthening self‑regulation, cognitive schemas, and communication skills. These are useful tools. But the fundamental question is another: how can one begin to say what one thinks, feels, or desires without the guarantee that it is universally right or acceptable? In analysis, it is the patient who, little by little, attempts to articulate their speech.
Those who fear abandonment often live with a deep sense of worthlessness: they believe their thoughts, emotions, and desires are wrong or inadequate. This leads them to over‑invest the other — partner, friend, teacher — assigning them the role of guarantor of their word: “Tell me what is right,” “stay here to make sure I don’t get it wrong.” The constant presence of the other becomes essential to avoid feeling “wrong,” or lost.
And yet no other — no authority — can definitively guarantee what we say. Speaking entails a risk, but it is also what makes us alive and free.
Saying What Crosses the Mind
The analytic setting offers a space in which this risk can be taken safely: learning to say what comes to mind, even what seems “wrong,” confused, off‑topic. Accepting not knowing exactly what one is saying nor where it will lead. Suspending the obligation to please the (imagined) expectations of the other and, instead, trying to say what one thinks and feels — perhaps in fragments, by trial and error. This is not an invitation to rambling: rather, it is accepting not to know exactly where one will end up. In this way, one slowly learns that:
- We do not necessarily need a definitive, coherent thought to begin speaking.
- Even what seems “wrong” or “incoherent” at first, can reveal some value if examined carefully.
- The value of what we say does not depend on the other’s approval.
From Being Abandoned to Abandoning Oneself
Overcoming the fear of the other’s abandonment means, paradoxically, learning to abandon oneself to the Other — to speech, to narrating, to the unconscious. This process implies:
- Letting go of control: not trying to say only what we think the other wants to hear.
- Accepting the risk of uncertainty: there is no guarantee that what we say will be received or understood as we would like.
- Finding one’s own desire: discovering, in speaking, what we truly want, think, and feel, and not what we think we ought to want.
A Safe Place for Risk
Analysis offers a safe space in which to take this risk. Here the patient can stop pleasing the other and discover their own voice, their own unconscious. This work does not eliminate vulnerability and dependence — intrinsic aspects of being human — but teaches that:
- We do not need an external guarantor in order to speak or to exist.
- We can find value in what we say, independent of others’ approval.
- Confidence is not the absence of doubt, but faith in the speech: by speaking and listening analytically, we develop intellectual curiosity, critical thinking and greater ability to raise questions that help us tolerate uncertainty and not knowing. (e.g., perhaps I do not know now, but I can come to know; this sense of possibility makes me less dependent on what others think and on their presence/absence).
Taking responsibility for one’s own speech requires active, ongoing work. Overcoming the fear of abandonment is not a sudden achievement but a gradual process in which what is questioned is not one’s worth as a person, but the beliefs and assumptions that have long shaped how one understands oneself and the world.
In analysis, this means examining one’s own speech, reconsidering what has been taken for granted, and allowing one’s thinking to develop in new directions. Little by little, one can begin to cultivate a confidence in what one feels and thinks, and to discover that it is possible to rely on one’s own word rather than on external guarantees. In this shift, solitude ceases to be a threat and becomes the condition from which speech can arise—supported not by reassurance from the other, but by an emerging stability in one’s own position.
This process does not lead to distancing ourselves from others, but rather ceasing to use them as a prosthesis of value. By suspending the compulsion to meet imagined expectations, one begins to discover that even seemingly incoherent speech can reveal something deeply personal and therefore important—something that then needs to be articulated and supported. Through analytic listening, what emerges becomes an inner point of support: a way of orienting oneself that does not depend on approval.
As this capacity develops, the function of the other changes. They cease to be a crutch or a judge and become a witness—someone before whom one speaks, not someone who dictates what one should be. The fear of abandonment does not disappear all at once, but it loses its commanding power, because the subject has rediscovered a place from which to sustain themselves. From there, relationships may endure—not because the other guarantees our worth, but because we are able to meet them without losing ourselves.