I have a theory. I believe that a great deal of anxiety can be understood as fear we don’t want to acknowledge or cannot acknowledge.

When I look around, I notice that everyone seems anxious. It has become one of the most common words of our time. People tell their GPs they are anxious, and often within minutes they leave with a label and perhaps a prescription. And yet, strangely, nobody says, “I am scared.”

Still, as I sit with people, I feel that much of life is being run by fear. Fear of rejection, fear of judgement, fear of loss. But fear is rarely named directly. Instead, it hides behind the softer, vaguer word: anxiety. Anxiety keeps things diffuse, unpinpointed. It is easier to say, “I am anxious,” than to admit, “I am afraid.”

As a therapist, I feel my role is to help give anxiety a clearer shape, to translate it into something more precise. Anxiety is like a fog. Fear, when it is finally spoken, is sharper, more honest.

A client might say, “I feel anxious at work.” Left at that, the statement is too large, too vague. But slowly it can unfold into something closer to the truth: “I am afraid of making a mistake. I am afraid of being exposed as not good enough. I am afraid I am a failure,” and so on.

When the translation happens, from anxiety to fear, something shifts. The energy in the room feels different. What once seemed like a swirl with no centre begins to take form. Fear can be faced. It can be shared. And when it is named, it often begins to soften.

I sometimes think of myself as a translator of anxiety. I listen for what is hidden underneath, and I try to help find the words that bring it into the open. Not in a way that imposes, but in a way that honours what the person already knows, though they may not yet have dared to say.

This translation is essential. Anxiety is unpredictable; it makes the world illegible. Fear, by contrast, is adaptive. It has offered an evolutionary advantage. Fear is normal, and it is authentic: the capacity to look at how things are. Acknowledging fear is progress — great progress.

When fear is finally spoken, I notice not only the relief in people’s words but also the response of their bodies: the tightening in the chest that suddenly loosens, the heaviness in the stomach that becomes nameable, the trembling in the voice that joins the dialogue.

What was once silent begins to participate.