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Key points
- A sense of dread may be due to an abstractly internalized experience of external volatility called “disembedding”.
- Free-floating anxiety can be lessened by increasing face-to-face contact, talking to people you trust, and seeking experiences of older times.
- Free-floating anxiety can also be lessened by asking three quesitons: What brings order to my life? What adds meaning? What brings value?
Have you ever had anxiety come on suddenly? Either triggered by a relatively minor event or completely out of the blue, this anxiety can manifest first as a panic attack. But it can feel very dangerous and threatening when it keeps coming back or takes over your sense of being in the world. While several labels can apply to this phenomenon, including “recurrent panic attacks” or “generalized anxiety disorder”, an older framework called “free-floating anxiety” (described by Freud in 1894) also does justice to how this symptom feels1.
Free-floating anxiety
“Free-floating anxiety” is anxiety that has been unleashed. It feels like it takes over your mind and body, making you feel ill at ease most of the time. Often, it feels like you are knocking on death’s door. The threat may be so severe that it is debilitating.
Disembedding: a modern phenomenon
One often overlooked correlate of this kind of anxiety is how modernity impacts it. When the outside world is increasingly uncertain, like when infections pose a constant threat, and banks are failing, while interest rates are rising, and violence and crime are escalating, these processes become overwhelming, not only because of what they are but because they can be communicated without face-to-face contact.
Called disembedding2, this phenomenon refers to our ability to interact with one another without having to make face-to-face contact. The result is an overabundance of information that comes our way. It becomes abstracted and metaphorically slips through the fingers of our minds in trying to grasp what it is. With a few clicks through an Instagram feed, scrolling through Twitter, or even just opening your web browser to search for something, your brain becomes a dartboard for world news. Some have referred to this as “ontological insecurity.”3
Ontological insecurity
The word ontology refers to a branch of metaphysical study related to the nature of being. “Ontological insecurity” is an older existentialist term that refers to a disruption in one’s sense of self and society's shared norms. You don’t feel like your old happier self anymore. And you feel numb sometimes.
Ontological security—often experienced as a kind of emotional stability—is usually unconscious, so when disrupted, it often occurs outside of conscious awareness too. Polarizing events such as pandemics and political elections can make this worse.
When one experiences this, there are often repeated attempts to secure a firm base. People will reassert their values as moral absolutes, declare other groups as lacking in value, draw distinct lines of virtue and vice, be rigid rather than flexible in their judgements, and punitive and excluding rather than permeable and assimilative3.
Another consequence of disembedding is the possibility of scapegoating: the underclass, racial minorities, new-age travelers, addicts, people with unusual behaviors, and other vulnerable social groups risk being singled out and demonized as the source of society’s problems. Our anxieties make us less tolerant of any differences, and as a result, we punish them. There is often a disproportionate response to rule-breaking, which may explain why we hear of excessive violence applied to suspicious others.
How to manage free-floating anxiety
The first thing is to restrict information inflow and to keep your communications with people you trust. Also, revisit older, more trustable times. Go to a bar with live music of Frank Sinatra, or steep yourself in some resemblance of the Gilded Age if that comforts you. Rather than resist the ever-changing world, accept that it is. Then build islands of non-change in these volatile waters.
Meaning-making and a sense of purpose can also protect you. Whether it is simply making money or preventing world hunger, your meaning must truly resonate with you. For some, this meaning-making may come from cultural or religious traditions. Since fear of death is also intrinsic to this anxiety, having children as an extension of this life may also help to reduce your anxiety. But remember, there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
If all this seems too much to remember, remember three things: order, meaning, and value. What brings order to your life? What brings meaning to your life? What do you value? Let those three things be your navigator’s components as you make your way through these wild waters. When you do, your free-floating anxiety will likely lessen significantly or even melt away.
References
Rickels, K.; Rynn, M. A. What Is Generalized Anxiety Disorder? J Clin Psychiatry 2001, 62 Suppl 11, 4–12; discussion 13-14.
(2) Stones, R. Disembedding. In The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470670590.wbeog154.
(3) Marle, F.; Maruna, S. “Ontological Insecurity” and “Terror Management”: Linking Two Free-Floating Anxieties. Punishment & Society-international Journal of Penology - PUNISHM SOC 2010, 12, 7–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/1462474509349084.
