Many people come to psychotherapy carrying a quiet but persistent worry: I’m falling behind. Others seem to be moving forward — building careers, forming families, accumulating markers of success — while they feel stalled, delayed, or out of sync. This feeling is often accompanied by shame, urgency, and a harsh internal voice that insists time is running out.
In my work in psychotherapy Melbourne, this experience is especially common among adults who are outwardly capable and high-functioning. They are not failing in any obvious way, yet they live with a constant sense of insufficiency. From a psychoanalytic perspective, this is not simply a reaction to external circumstances. It reflects a deeper relation to ideals, identification, and the way the subject measures themselves against the Other.
Lacan’s early teaching, particularly in Seminar I, situates the subject as fundamentally divided — never fully coinciding with themselves, always spoken by language before they can speak (Lacan, 1953–1954). The feeling of being “behind” is not only cultural; it is rooted in how the ego is formed through comparison and misrecognition.
The Cultural Pressure to “Keep Up”
Contemporary culture is saturated with timelines. There are implicit schedules for education, relationships, career progression, and self-realisation. These timelines are rarely neutral; they function as ideals against which one’s life is continuously measured.
This pressure intensifies as traditional symbolic authorities weaken. Without stable reference points, subjects increasingly orient themselves through peer comparison. Success becomes relative, visible, and quantified. The question shifts from What do I want? to How do I appear?
Here, Lacan’s Mirror Stage becomes central. In his paper “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I,” Lacan describes how the ego is constituted through identification with an image that promises unity and coherence, while masking division and dependency (Lacan, 1949/2006). Modern culture multiplies these mirror images endlessly. The subject becomes caught in comparison not with a real other, but with idealised reflections.
Social Media, Milestones, and the Mechanics of Comparison
Social media intensifies the mirror-stage logic. It offers polished images of lives apparently lived “on time” — careers flourishing, relationships settled, bodies perfected. These images operate at the level of the imaginary, reinforcing the illusion that wholeness is attainable if one only keeps up.
Milestones become rigid benchmarks rather than symbolic passages. Missing a milestone is experienced not as difference, but as personal deficiency. The subject does not simply feel late; they feel exposed.
In Seminar I, Lacan emphasises that the ego is not a site of truth, but a defensive structure organised around maintaining a coherent image (Lacan, 1953–1954). When this image is threatened — when the subject cannot match the reflected ideal — anxiety and shame emerge.
Lacan’s Seminar on Anxiety clarifies this further. Anxiety arises not from lack, but from being too close to an impossible demand — an ideal that promises completion but cannot be reached (Lacan, 1962–1963). Comparison culture keeps the subject perpetually near this impossible object.
Subjective Effects: Shame, Avoidance, and Low Motivation
Clinically, feeling “behind” often manifests as shame rather than sadness. Shame concerns being seen — or imagined as seen — as lacking. It attacks the subject at the level of being, not action.
Many respond with avoidance: delaying decisions, withdrawing from opportunities, or disengaging from relationships. Others respond with perfectionism, overachievement, or relentless self-surveillance. Both responses are attempts to stabilise the ego image under threat.
From a Lacanian perspective, these strategies are efforts to manage the gaze of the Other. In Seminar I, Lacan shows how the ego is structured to defend against fragmentation anxiety by clinging to images of mastery (Lacan, 1953–1954). When mastery fails, anxiety intensifies.
Patients seeking psychodynamic psychotherapy Melbourne often arrive exhausted — caught between striving and paralysis, unable to relinquish ideals yet unable to embody them.
Psychodynamic Exploration of Underlying Beliefs and Narratives
Psychodynamic psychotherapy does not begin by correcting the thought “I’m falling behind.” It asks how this statement functions in the subject’s psychic economy. Who is imagined to be watching? What standard is being invoked? What would be lost if the subject stopped measuring themselves this way?
Language is central here. Seminar I foregrounds speech as the site where psychic reality is organised. The subject does not simply report their life; they position themselves within a symbolic order that assigns value, time, and meaning (Lacan, 1953–1954).
Therapy allows these narratives to be spoken, repeated, and questioned. Over time, the subject may recognise that the standard they are trying to meet is not their own, but an internalised image derived from the Other.
Anxiety, in this process, is not treated as an obstacle but as a guide. As Lacan makes clear in the Seminar on Anxiety, anxiety signals a moment where the subject is close to separating from an alienating identification (Lacan, 1962–1963). This makes it clinically precious.
Those searching for a therapist Melbourne or psychotherapist near me often find relief not through reassurance, but through a shift in how they relate to time, ideals, and self-worth.
Values-Based Goal Setting
While psychodynamic psychotherapy is not directive, it supports practical reframing that emerges from insight. One such shift is distinguishing between goals organised by desire and goals organised by comparison.
This may involve slowing down, tolerating uncertainty, and allowing one’s trajectory to diverge from normative timelines. It also involves reducing compulsive comparison — particularly through social media — not as a rule, but as a symbolic repositioning away from the mirror.
Values-based goal setting becomes meaningful only once borrowed ideals are loosened. The aim is not to replace one image with another, but to reduce the tyranny of the image itself.
In clinical terms, this marks a movement away from the imaginary and toward the symbolic — from trying to be an ideal, to speaking one’s position in relation to desire.
Conclusion: Toward Sustainable Personal Growth
Feeling like you are falling behind is not a personal failure. It is a predictable effect of a culture that multiplies mirrors while eroding symbolic limits. Psychoanalysis reminds us that subjectivity is not linear, cumulative, or measurable.
Through psychotherapy Melbourne, particularly psychodynamic psychotherapy Melbourne, it becomes possible to loosen the grip of comparison and reframe success beyond visibility and speed. The question shifts from “Am I ahead or behind?” to “What is my relation to desire, time, and limitation?”
Sustainable growth does not come from catching up. It comes from stepping out of the mirror and into a life that can be lived — imperfectly, singularly, and at one’s own pace.
References
Lacan, J. (1949/2006). The mirror stage as formative of the I function as revealed in psychoanalytic experience. In Écrits (B. Fink, Trans., pp. 75–81). New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
Lacan, J. (1953–1954). The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book I: Freud’s papers on technique (J. Forrester, Trans.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
Lacan, J. (1962–1963). The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book X: Anxiety (C. Gallagher, Trans.). Unpublished seminar.
Disclaimer
These writings are not therapy; they are general information about therapy. They are not a substitute for therapy or professional psychological advice. While care has been taken to ensure accuracy and reference to published research, therapy and psychoanalytic work are domains of ongoing study. A written text cannot replace the conversation that takes place in therapy sessions, which are dynamic, evolving, and centred on individual experience. Each person’s situation is unique, and meanings can only be spoken and explored within one’s own sessions. If something in these writings resonates with you and you are considering therapy, you are welcome to book a session.