Worry often disguises itself as responsibility, care, or preparation. We tell ourselves that if we think about a problem long enough, we can prevent something bad from happening. Yet from a Jungian and psychodynamic perspective, worry is rarely about the external situation itself — it’s a psychological defense, a mental ritual that helps the ego feel in control in the face of deeper uncertainty.

The Ego’s Desire for Control

In Jung’s model of the psyche, the ego is the center of conscious awareness — the “I” that organizes daily life and mediates between the inner and outer worlds. Its task is to maintain a stable sense of identity and agency amid the shifting forces of the unconscious (Jung, CW 9ii).

When life presents unpredictability — illness, loss, ambiguity, conflict — the ego feels destabilized. Worry becomes one of its coping strategies: an attempt to restore the illusion of mastery through constant mental activity.

Our mind spins because stillness feels dangerous. Silence would expose the truth: that control is limited, outcomes are uncertain, and life unfolds on its own terms. Thus, worry is not so much about solving problems as it is about avoiding powerlessness.

Worry as a Defense Mechanism

Nancy McWilliams (2011) describes worry as a form of intellectualization and displacement — a defense that replaces emotional experience with mental analysis. It gives the ego something to “do” with its anxiety, keeping feelings at a distance.

In this sense, worry protects the psyche from what feels intolerable — fear, grief, helplessness — by converting emotion into cognition. Yet what the ego calls protection often becomes imprisonment. As Jung observed, “The more the ego seeks to control, the more it becomes possessed by what it denies” (CW 11).

Worry’s endless mental rehearsal is a way to avoid encountering the shadow — those disowned aspects of the self that hold vulnerability, dependency, and the limits of human power.

The Shadow Side of Control

Jung’s concept of the shadow includes all the traits and truths that the conscious ego rejects. For the habitual worrier, the shadow contains helplessness, uncertainty, and surrender — qualities the ego fears will destroy its sense of competence.

By worrying, we defend against these feelings. We stay in the realm of thought rather than the realm of emotion. Yet individuation, the process of psychological growth and wholeness, requires us to confront precisely what the ego most resists.

As we face our shadow, we discover that what we feared as weakness often holds the key to strength. To admit our lack of control is not defeat — it’s a passage into humility, openness, and greater trust in life’s unfolding.

Worry and the False Promise of Safety

Psychologically, worry offers a false promise: “If I think about it enough, I’ll prevent it.” But research on anxiety and control shows the opposite — excessive mental control increases sympathetic arousal and decreases emotion regulation (Gross, 2015).

In effect, worry hijacks the body’s stress response while numbing the deeper emotional truths beneath it. It becomes a kind of self-hypnosis or a way to feel safer without actually being safer.

From a depth-psychological lens, worry can be seen as the ego’s attempt to build a dam against the unconscious. But as Jung noted, the unconscious will find expression one way or another: through dreams, symptoms, or somatic tension. The more we cling to control, the more life presses for balance.

Letting Go

Healing begins when we shift from fighting uncertainty to befriending it. Rather than trying to suppress worry, we can listen to it as a symbolic messenger. Each worry points toward a deeper wound or unacknowledged fear.

Ask yourself:

• What emotion lives beneath this thought?
• What am I trying to prevent by worrying?
• What would happen if I trusted myself — or life — even briefly?

As Jungian analyst Marion Woodman wrote, “Control is the great neurosis of our age.” The antidote is not passivity but presence — the willingness to stay with life as it is, without prematurely escaping into the safety of the mind.

Meditative and mindfulness-based therapies (e.g., Kabat-Zinn, 2013) echo this insight. They help individuals notice the mind’s compulsive planning and catastrophizing with compassion rather than identification. Over time, the worry loses its charge because the ego no longer equates thinking with control.

Integration: From Worry to Wisdom

When we approach worry as a defense, not a failure, we open space for transformation. Worry becomes less of an enemy and more of a guide, revealing where the ego still clings to certainty.

This shift marks a step toward individuation: the movement from an ego-driven life to one oriented by the Self, the deeper organizing principle of the psyche. In that space, control gives way to trust, fear to faith, and worry to wisdom.

Worry, then, is not something to eradicate but something to redeem. It teaches us humility. It draws us toward acceptance of life’s mystery. And it invites us to slowly surrender the illusion of control and discover a more enduring inner ground.

Dr. Thomas Lindquist, Psy.D.

Licensed Psychologist

Contact: t.lindquist.psyd@gmail.com