Between "Hysteria" and Perversion: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Anti‑Vaxxer Belief and Behavior

Introduction

Public distrust of vaccines—often dubbed the anti-vaxxer movement—presents a puzzling constellation of seemingly irrational beliefs and behaviors. Amid global health crises, many individuals, including the well-educated, reject lifesaving vaccines, fueling conspiracy theories and exacerbating public health risks. This phenomenon is frequently labeled “hysteria” in media discourse, a term laden with historical baggage. “Hysteria” implies an excessive, irrational fear and, more insidiously, has long functioned as a gendered and pathologizing term in both medical and psychoanalytic history. In Freudian and post-Freudian psychoanalysis, hysteria refers to a neurotic structure marked by bodily symptoms, unconscious conflict, and complex relations to authority and desire. While psychoanalysis gave the term clinical depth, it remains encrusted with sexist overtones and diagnostic imprecision.

In this essay, I consciously move away from the term "hysteria" and instead propose two psychoanalytically grounded alternatives: affective contagion and unsymbolized anxiety. These concepts better capture the collective and unconscious dynamics of the anti-vaccine movement without invoking the gendered assumptions and clinical reductionism that “hysteria” often entails.

Affective contagion refers to the transmission of unprocessed affect across individuals and groups—what Bion might call beta-elements that have not been metabolized through a thinking function. It describes the way unconscious anxiety can become socially viral, intensifying in echo chambers where symbolic mediation fails. Ironically—and perhaps tellingly—this concept, rooted in psychoanalytic and affect theory, applies with particular precision to the anti-vaccine movement: a group that, despite demonstrably underestimating the danger of literal contagion, is nevertheless swept up in an emotional and ideological contagion of anxiety, mistrust, and rage. That is, they disavow the biological reality of viral transmission while simultaneously succumbing to a viral transmission of unthought affect. The irony is not that they fear infection, but that they fail to fear it—while being overtaken by another, more psychically infectious form of unacknowledged vulnerability.

Unsymbolized anxiety, a term drawn from Bion, Green, and later elaborated by Scarfone, names the core phenomenon: an unthinkable, overwhelming anxiety that cannot be integrated into the symbolic order. Such anxiety tends to manifest in bodily terms—somatic concerns, purity fantasies, immune system ideologies—and often takes the form of fetishistic beliefs or defensive omnipotence. For many anti-vaxxers, the vaccine becomes a symbolic stand-in for invasive external control, and refusal becomes a ritual of narcissistic sovereignty.

Rather than dismiss vaccine refusal as mere ignorance or disinformation, a psychoanalytic lens invites us to explore the deeper psychic structures at work: denial, splitting, projection, fetishism, and the manic defense. The rejection of symbolic authority—whether of medical experts, state mandates, or scientific consensus—can be understood as an Oedipal or narcissistic drama, wherein the subject refuses to accept a reality principle imposed from without. We also consider the role of narcissistic injury in shaping anti-vaxxers’ self-concepts, uncanny anxieties about bodily invasion (what Laplanche might call enigmatic messages directed at the body), and the perverse jouissance (excessive, often painful enjoyment) that conspiracy thinking seems to afford.

Throughout, we treat the formerly named “hysterical reaction” not as a diagnosis but as an entry point into the libidinal and structural dynamics that sustain resistance to public health. In replacing the term “hysteria” with “affective contagion” and “unsymbolized anxiety,” we aim not only for greater theoretical precision but also for a more ethical and contemporary psychoanalytic account of collective irrationalism.

Defenses of Denial, Splitting, and Projection

Psychoanalytic theory suggests that when reality becomes threatening, the mind mobilizes defense mechanisms to manage anxiety. In the case of vaccine refusal, several classic defenses are readily apparent:

• Denial: Perhaps the most evident mechanism is a refusal to acknowledge inconvenient facts. Many vaccine skeptics simply deny the severity of disease or the efficacy of vaccines, despite overwhelming evidence. Recent psychodynamic research describes vaccine refusal as rooted in denial of risk, often supported by a kind of magical object or idea that the person believes makes them immune ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ). For example, an unvaccinated individual might insist they “don’t need” a vaccine because they have natural immunity or divine protection. This goes beyond conscious lying; it is an unconscious disavowal of reality to avoid psychic distress. Sigmund Freud noted that denial (Verleugnung) allows a person to reject a painful reality while at some level knowing it to be true – a hallmark of fetishistic thinking (discussed below). In anti-vaxxers, denial is evident when someone simultaneously knows that infection is possible yet pushes away that knowledge, acting as if they were untouchable.

• Fetishistic Disavowal: Closely tied to denial is what Freud called fetishism, a perverse defense against anxiety. In classical Freudian terms, fetishism involves a bizarre compromise: the subject disavows an unbearable truth (such as the reality of castration, in Freud’s theory) by substituting a fetish object that both acknowledges and negates the reality. Contemporary analysts have applied this idea to risk perception. Vaccine refusers often have a fetish-object that guarantees their safety – whether it be an herb, a vitamin regimen, or an ideological principle – which they regard as an almighty protector rendering the vaccine irrelevant ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ) ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ). As one clinical paper notes, the anti-vaxxer “displays a fetishist stance…aimed at enabling the individual to deny that he is at risk,” essentially making a “pact” with an object of power in exchange for immunity from harm ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ) ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ). The psychological function of this fetish is to neutralize fear: by exclusively trusting, say, “natural health” or a deity, the person can deny the danger of infection and quell their anxiety ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ). Crucially, this fetishistic denial involves a splitting of the ego or mind ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ): one part of the person knows disease is real, while another part dismisses it, clinging to the fetish object’s promised protection. Such splitting allows contradictory beliefs to coexist – “I could get sick” alongside “I am totally safe” – without triggering unbearable anxiety.

• Splitting and Projection: Melanie Klein observed that under stress, people (especially in early psychic development) may split the world into simplistic good-versus-bad categories to manage paranoid anxiety. Anti-vax discourse often splits entities into all-good and all-bad. Vaccines and those who promote them (doctors, governments, pharmaceutical companies) become all bad—portrayed as malevolent, toxic, even evil—while “natural immunity” or unvaccinated children are idealized as pure and all good. This splitting goes hand-in-hand with projection, where internal fears and hostilities are attributed outward. For instance, an anti-vaccine individual who harbors aggressive feelings might project them onto public health authorities, accusing them of harboring nefarious intentions (“They want to harm us” or “control us”). In Kleinian terms, the anti-vaxxer in a paranoid-schizoid mode expels badness into an external figure (e.g. “Big Pharma” as an evil persecutor) to preserve an internal sense of purity. Wilfred Bion similarly noted that groups under anxiety may form a “basic assumption” mentality, such as a paranoid group that bonds by projecting threats onto an outside enemy. By casting pro-vaccine advocates as dangerous or untrustworthy, anti-vaccine groups achieve a kind of emotional coherence—we are righteous victims, they are corrupt or ignorant. This mechanism shields the individual from recognizing their own doubts or antisocial impulses, but it severely distorts reality and hinders dialogue.

• Deliberate Ignorance: A subtle defensive behavior related to denial is the willful avoidance of information. Many vaccine skeptics actively avoid credible sources or dismiss any contrary data as fake. Psychologically, this can be seen as an avoidant defense—keeping threatening knowledge out of consciousness. A recent study in Nature found that COVID-19 vaccine refusers often ignored even information they had deliberately been exposed to, suggesting a motivated filtering of perception to maintain their beliefs ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ) ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ). In psychoanalytic terms, we might say there is an unconscious refusal to “know” certain realities, because knowing would demand painful changes in self-image or worldview. This selective attention protects a fragile belief system from being destabilized, much like Freud’s patients would develop blind spots to keep repressed truths out of view.

In sum, anti-vax belief systems demonstrate a network of defensive operations. Denial and disavowal allow the believer to feel safe against all evidence; splitting and projection simplify a complex reality into moral absolutes of good self vs. evil other; and cognitive avoidance keeps the uncomfortable truth at bay. These mechanisms are not unique to anti-vaxxers—people use them routinely to cope with trauma or uncertainty—but in the anti-vax “hysterical” movement, they coalesce into a shared narrative of persecution and purity that resists logical persuasion.

Rejection of Symbolic Authority

A striking feature of anti-vaxxer ideology is its defiant rejection of authority—especially the authority of scientific experts, government officials, and other institutional voices. Psychoanalytically, this can be viewed through the lens of Oedipal dynamics and Lacanian theory as a rebellion against the Symbolic Father (the figure of law, order, and knowledge). In Jacques Lacan’s terms, the Name-of-the-Father represents the symbolic authority that regulates desire and anchors the individual in a shared social reality (the Symbolic order). For healthy development, one must accept a certain symbolic castration—i.e. accept that one is not all-powerful or all-knowing, and that one must defer to external laws and truths at times. The anti-vaxxer, however, pointedly refuses this submission. Often, they refuse to “be told what to do” by doctors or mandates, cherishing an illusion of sovereign autonomy. This refusal can be seen as a neurotic resistance or even a perverse refusal of castration: an insistence that “No one can limit me or tell me what’s real.” In extreme cases, such defiance edges into psychotic structure, where the individual completely forecloses the paternal metaphor—much like Schreber, Freud’s famous paranoiac, who rejected the authority of medical doctors only to construct a delusional world with himself at the center.

On a societal level, the anti-vax movement’s distrust of experts reflects a broader collapse of what Lacanians call “symbolic efficiency.” In our postmodern era, the once-stable authority of institutions and experts has been eroded; the symbolic order itself is experienced as inconsistent, untrustworthy, or even deceptive. As one analysis puts it, people have grown haunted by “the horror of an inconsistent social authority”, and conspiracy theories arise to provide “comforting solutions” to fill the gap. If the official big Other (government, science) is perceived as failing or lying, the subject seeks alternative narratives to make sense of the world. Anti-vaxxers thus often frame their stance as a heroic refusal of false authority: they believe the authorities are hiding “the real truth,” and only by rejecting mainstream narratives can they assert their own mastery of truth. This stance can be interpreted as a form of hysterical revolt – in classical hysteria, the patient unconsciously rebels against the master (doctor or father figure) by producing symptoms that defy his understanding. Similarly, anti-vax “hysteria” challenges the authority of medical science, often with dramatic emotional displays (protest rallies, viral videos) that say, in effect, “You don’t control my body or define my reality!”

There is also an element of anal narcissism in this oppositional stance, reminiscent of the toddler’s “No!” reflex. By withholding consent to vaccination, the individual asserts a sense of control and self-determination, however illusory. The act of refusal becomes a source of narcissistic pride (“I think for myself; I’m not a sheep”). Indeed, many anti-vaxxers describe themselves as independent researchers or warriors for truth, positioning themselves against the “blind” masses. This speaks to an underlying narcissistic injury that authority might represent: to accept the vaccine (and the reasoning of experts) would be to admit being an ordinary, obedient person, one of the crowd. For someone with narcissistic vulnerabilities, this can feel like a humiliation or a loss of uniqueness. Instead, by rejecting the vaccine, they align with a countercultural in-group that flatters their ego – they become the enlightened few among fools. In some cases, one even sees what Heinz Kohut would call narcissistic rage when their views are challenged: intense, disproportionate anger towards doctors or pro-vaccine peers that suggests a deep wound has been touched. That wound is the suggestion that “you are wrong, you are misinformed,” which the narcissistic psyche hears as “you are inferior or foolish.” Rather than face that shame, it is easier to double down and devalue the source of threat (branding the doctor a corrupt shill, for example). By flipping the script—“I’m not ignorant, you are!”—the narcissistically injured person saves face and reinforces their own grandiose self-image.

From a Kleinian perspective, we might also view the anti-vaxxer’s stance as rooted in the paranoid-schizoid position, which lacks trust in the benevolence of the Other. The acceptance of a vaccine requires trust in a larger human collective (medical science, societal norms) and a willingness to be a dependent recipient of knowledge/care. For someone stuck in paranoid-schizoid mode, such dependence feels dangerous; the Other (e.g., the medical establishment) is imagined as actively malevolent. This helps explain the proliferation of conspiracy theories about vaccines: rather than seeing health authorities as fallible but well-intentioned, the anti-vax narrative casts them as knowingly evil—poisoning children for profit, etc. It is a total loss of the basic trust that psychoanalyst Erik Erikson identified as the foundation of healthy ego development. When basic trust fails, what remains is suspicion and defiance.

In summary, the anti-vaxxer’s battle with authority is not simply political—it is deeply psychological. It reenacts primal struggles with parental figures and authority structures, oscillating between hysterical refusal (“I won’t submit to your knowledge!”) and paranoid delusion (“You evil authorities want to harm us”). Psychoanalysis reminds us that beneath the surface arguments about research and rights, these individuals may be unconsciously working through feelings of mistrust, resentment, and fear of dependency that have roots in earlier life experiences. Understanding this can foster empathy, even as we reject the dangerous outcomes of their beliefs. It suggests that any attempt to address vaccine hesitancy must consider not only facts, but the emotional meaning accepting those facts has for the person—often, it means relinquishing a defensive stance that feels like self-protection or dignity.

Narcissistic Injury and the Need for Uniqueness

Narcissism plays a pivotal role in anti-vax phenomena. Many analysts have noted that vaccine refusal can serve as a bulwark for the ego, compensating for feelings of smallness or vulnerability with grandiose defiance. On the individual level, being an anti-vaxxer often fulfills a need to feel special or superior. The believer possesses secret “truth” that the gullible masses and credentialed experts have supposedly missed. This imbues them with a sense of importance: they become the hero of their own story, the one clear-sighted individual in a world of dupes. Such a narrative is gratifying to the ego. We can view this as a response to narcissistic injury – perhaps the person has, at some level, felt insignificant, out of control, or disrespected by society, and now the anti-vax identity restores a sense of agency and pride. By saying “no” to vaccines, they are in effect saying “I matter – my personal intuition matters more than societal expectations.” It is a way to claim dignity in a world that might have otherwise made them feel powerless (through bureaucratic healthcare systems, mandates, etc.).

On a group level, researchers have identified collective narcissism as a factor in conspiratorial thinking. Collective narcissism is an inflated, fragile group pride – the belief that “our group is exceptional and deserves special recognition.” Anti-vax communities often exhibit this: they see themselves as an elect group who understand, surrounded by a contemptible mainstream. For instance, some anti-vaccine parent groups tout themselves as more caring, more informed parents than those who vaccinate, implying a moral and intellectual superiority. This group grandiosity is, paradoxically, a defense against deep social estrangement or shame. Heinz Kohut’s self-psychology would suggest that these individuals are using the group belief to stabilize a wavering self. The conspiracy or anti-vax cause provides a selfobject – an external project that shores up their self-esteem and gives them a sense of coherence and purpose. If someone’s normal narcissistic needs for recognition were thwarted (say, by feelings of being “just another face in the crowd”), adopting a contrarian stance can serve as a kind of narcissistic self-remedy.

However, narcissistic defenses come at a cost. They require constant external validation and are hypersensitive to criticism. Thus, when anti-vaxxers encounter pushback, they often react with disproportionate outrage or persecution claims. Psychologically, this can be seen as narcissistic rage triggered by an injury to their inflated self-image. Telling an anti-vaxxer “You’re wrong, the data says so” is not received as a mere correction; unconsciously it strikes at their very identity as savvy and superior. The furious response (“How dare you, you sheeple!”) is an attempt to fight off the shame and reassert dominance. In some cases, this can lead to conspiracy escalation: rather than consider they might be wrong, true believers may double down by embracing even more extreme narratives that explain away any contrary evidence (for example, claiming that all counter-evidence is falsified by a vast conspiracy). This escalation serves to protect the grandiose belief system from collapse. We see here what Freud called the “narcissism of small differences,” where minor challenges or disagreements provoke outsized hostility because they threaten one’s self-definition. Anti-vax subcultures sometimes splinter into factions that denounce each other, each claiming to be the true keepers of the faith, in what can be viewed as narcissistic turf wars.

Another psychoanalytic angle on narcissism in anti-vax behavior is the concept of secondary gain. By positioning oneself as a victim of tyrannical vaccine mandates or a crusader for freedom, an individual garners sympathy, attention, or a sense of heroism – all of which feed the narcissistic appetite. A person who otherwise feels their life lacks recognition may find a new role as a bold truth-teller, enjoying the drama of being criticized and thus martyrized. D.W. Winnicott might say that this provides a kind of “subjective omnipotence” in the cultural arena – a way to feel real and alive by clashing with the “establishment.” Winnicott also famously said that some antisocial behavior is actually a sign of hope, an attempt to get a reaction from a society that one feels invisible within. In that sense, anti-vax provocations (“I’ll go protest mask mandates at the school board”) might be an unconscious plea to be seen and heard by a parental authority, even if in conflict. The tragedy is that this quest for validation leads into deeper alienation as relationships fray and society marginalizes the refusnik.

In conclusion, narcissistic dynamics provide a powerful undercurrent to the anti-vaccination movement. The stance offers narcissistic gratification – a feeling of being special, smarter, and more righteous than others – which can be intoxicating for those who lack other sources of positive self-regard. At the same time, this house of cards must constantly be defended against reality and ridicule, leading to brittle aggression. Recognizing the narcissistic payoff of anti-vax beliefs is important for anyone attempting to communicate with a vaccine refuser: appeals to pure reason may fail because what is at stake for the person is not just a belief, but their self-esteem and identity. Any intervention might need to find alternative avenues for the person to feel valued that do not require clinging to a dangerous delusion.

Uncanny Anxieties About Bodily Invasion

Beyond the sociopolitical and identity-based factors, anti-vaccine sentiments are often fueled by visceral bodily fears – what we might call uncanny anxieties about invasion and contamination. Vaccination involves piercing the skin with a needle and introducing a foreign substance (antigens, preservatives) into the body. For many people, especially those already predisposed to anxiety, this scenario taps into deep unconscious terrors of bodily violation. In psychoanalytic terms, the act of injection can be symbolically associated with penetration, impregnation, or loss of bodily integrity, all themes ripe with unconscious conflict.

(File:The cow pock.jpg - Wikimedia Commons) A satirical 1802 cartoon depicts exaggerated fears of vaccination, with vaccine recipients sprouting cow-like appendages after receiving cowpox inoculations. Such imagery reflects an uncanny anxiety about bodily invasion and transformation that has long accompanied vaccine campaigns.

Sigmund Freud’s concept of the uncanny (unheimlich) is useful here. The uncanny is the sense of something strangely familiar yet alien, often tied to the return of repressed infantile fears. The idea of one’s body being infiltrated by an “Other” (be it a microscopic germ, a liquid vaccine, or a microchip as some conspiracists fantasize) evokes that eerie feeling. It resonates with infantile fears of the body’s boundaries not holding up – a fear that one’s insides could be corrupted or controlled by someone else. Melanie Klein noted that infants in the paranoid-schizoid position experience anxieties about sinister forces entering their body (for example, the phantasy of the bad breast attacking from within). As adults, these primitive fears can be reactivated under stress. The discourse of “toxic ingredients” in vaccines or fears that vaccines will “alter your DNA” or “insert a tracking device” can be seen as modern manifestations of a primal fear: that accepting something from the outside (even for your own good) might lead to a loss of self or a monstrous transformation. The 1802 Gillray cartoon (above) exaggerates this – people growing cow parts – but it captures the psychological truth that being injected feels uncannily like being made not yourself, being merged with an animal or machine. It is a fear of the abject, to borrow Julia Kristeva’s term – that which is expelled to maintain the clean and proper self, but which eternally threatens to resurface and defile.

We can also understand vaccine anxieties through the lens of object relations. A vaccine needle is a literal intrusion of an object into one’s bodily self. If someone has an insecure sense of where Me ends and Not-Me begins (often due to developmental trauma or insecure attachment, per object relations theory), an injection might be experienced not just as a routine medical act but as a profound violation. The intense need some anti-vaxxers have to keep their children “pure” of vaccines likewise reflects a fantasy of maintaining an uncontaminated internal object. The child’s body becomes a repository of the parents’ own purity anxieties, such that a shot becomes a betrayal or defilement. Donald Winnicott’s idea of the body ego (the sense of self rooted in bodily experience) is relevant: if the body ego is fragile, medical interventions might be felt as attacks on the self, provoking disproportionate distress.

There is also often a sexual undercurrent to these fears. Anti-vaccine memes sometimes deploy rape metaphors (e.g. calling forced vaccination “medical rape” or needles as violating weapons). This dramatic language points to how the unconscious conflates various forms of penetration. The arm getting a jab can symbolically stand in for more primal invasive scenarios. For someone with latent trauma—say, a history of bodily violation or simply deep-seated castration anxiety—the mandate to get vaccinated can trigger panic that is not really about the vaccine per se, but about these buried scenarios. In Freudian terms, the needle could be an image of the phallus (raising anxieties of castration or sexual vulnerability), or conversely, of a harmful internal object (raising anal-sadistic fears of poisoning or mutilation from within).

The concept of the uncanny also involves a collapse between what is alive and what is not, or what is human and what is mechanistic. Vaccine conspiracies often involve science-fiction elements (microchips, 5G mind control, etc.) that evoke this uncanny valley between person and machine. The fear of “becoming a robot” or losing one’s free will due to a shot is essentially a fear of being dehumanized. This ties back to the earlier discussion of authority: to the anti-vaxxer, accepting a vaccine can unconsciously mean becoming a compliant automaton in the social machine, losing one’s individuality – an image that is indeed uncanny, as it is a human acting as a machine. Thus, they conjure literal machines (microchip implants) in their fantasy, externalizing the dread of inner mechanization.

In therapeutic settings, when patients voice strong reactions to needles or medications, psychoanalysts often explore personal associations and past experiences. It’s notable how frequently themes of control and trust emerge. The needle can represent the agent of another person’s will. To accept the vaccine, one must trust the benevolence and knowledge of the Other (doctor, scientist). If one harbors unconscious betrayal memories or a generalized distrust (perhaps from childhood medical trauma or parental betrayal), the act of being injected can replay that script: “I am at the mercy of someone who might harm me.” Indeed, some extreme anti-vaccine believers think doctors knowingly harm people – a projection of malicious intent likely rooted in earlier life betrayals, now transposed onto clinicians.

In conclusion, the somatic dimension of vaccine fears should not be underestimated. Underneath surface rhetoric about “toxins” and “side effects” may lie a maze of unconscious content: invasion fantasies, sexual anxieties, and identity confusion. By bringing the language of the unconscious (uncanny, abject, paranoid fantasy) to these fears, we can better grasp why assurances of safety often fall on deaf ears. The anti-vaxxer’s resistance is not purely intellectual, but bodily and emotional at an archaic level. Any public health effort that ignores this—focusing only on rational argument—will struggle to get through. A more sensitive approach might acknowledge these visceral fears, perhaps by emphasizing agency (e.g. having a trusted personal physician administer the vaccine in a comforting setting) to mitigate feelings of violation. Psychoanalysis teaches us that what appears “crazy” may be the psyche’s attempt to symbolically work through something very profound: in this case, the boundary between self and other, human and non-human, safety and violation.

The Jouissance of Conspiratorial Thinking

One of the most intriguing contributions of psychoanalysis to understanding anti-vax and conspiracy movements is the concept of jouissance—the paradoxical enjoyment that people get from beliefs and behaviors that ostensibly cause them stress or harm. It may seem counter-intuitive that anyone would derive pleasure from fearing vaccines or imagining apocalyptic conspiracies. Yet, as many theorists have pointed out, there is a libidinal thrill in being a conspiracist, a kind of dark satisfaction that keeps people hooked. Jacques Lacan introduced jouissance to denote an excessive, transgressive enjoyment beyond the simple pleasure principle—a mixture of pleasure and pain, fascination and horror. In the anti-vax conspiracy realm, jouissance is palpable: think of the adrenaline rush of uncovering a “secret” or the grim excitement of sharing doomsday predictions with fellow believers. These activities produce strong emotional arousal, a sense of living on the edge of an epic truth or battle.

Contemporary Lacanian analysts note that conspiracy theorists are often caught in a repetitive cycle of seeking the next revelation. The process is inherently never-ending: there is always another rabbit hole, another layer of the onion. Intriguingly, it is the failure to ever conclusively prove the conspiracy that generates enjoyment. As one commentary observed, “constantly failing to unveil the ultimate ‘Truth’ behind the evil deeds… those who engage with conspiracy theories find some source of enjoyment” in the hunt itself. The endless research, the late-night forum discussions, the piecing together of clues—these become a source of libidinal gratification. In Lacanian terms, the conspiracy quest is a drive that circulates around an unattainable object. Every time one “connects the dots” and “finds a hidden clue… we jolt in our excitement that each piece falls into place”, as Derek Hook vividly put it. But of course, the puzzle never fully completes—there’s always more—and this endless deferment is precisely what sustains the drive. The true aim is not to arrive at truth (for that would kill the excitement) but to keep seeking it. The movement itself—of searching, suspecting, outraging—is the jouissance.

Another aspect of conspiratorial jouissance is transgression. Anti-vax and related conspiracies often involve flouting social norms and official narratives. There is a rebellious glee in “overstepping a boundary” and indulging in the illicit view. Followers often speak of the thrill of saying something taboo or of outsmarting the censors. Psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek and others have noted that enjoyment in disobeying the prohibitions can bind a community together. By collectively doing what is scorned (spreading “misinformation,” rejecting masks, etc.), the group feels an illicit camaraderie. Derek Hook calls this the “special libidinal gain” of transgression. We can think of it as analogous to a prank or a secret society—being on the inside of a forbidden experience intensifies group bonds and personal excitement. This is why fact-checks and social disapproval often backfire; they can even heighten the jouissance by adding a sense of persecution (“They’re trying to silence us, which proves we’re onto something!”). Here we see a collision of pleasure and pain: being ridiculed or marginalized for one’s beliefs actually feeds the enjoyment by martyrizing the believer, giving them the bittersweet pleasure of “stolen enjoyment.” Lacanian theory of social bonds suggests that groups often form around a shared enjoyment in an object or activity, and for conspiracists, the object may be this very sense of forbidden knowledge.

Jouissance in conspiracy also ties to what Lacan called the Other’s enjoyment. People can become obsessed with the idea that someone out there (the government, elites, etc.) is enjoying something at our expense or keeping enjoyment from us. Anti-vaxxers frequently assert that elites are exploiting the pandemic to gain wealth or power (their form of enjoyment), or that the vaccinated are smugly compliant while the unvaccinated suffer restrictions (the vaccinated enjoying social approval, etc.). This dynamic of envy and resentment – “They are stealing our enjoyment!” – actually generates enjoyment for the believer, as it gives a clear target for their frustrations. As one analysis summarized, the believer experiences the most intense enjoyment when “it is seen to be in the possession of others, or when it is perceived as endangered, about to be snatched away”. In other words, imagining that the government or “sheeple” are taking away one’s freedoms (enjoyments) incites a passionate response that is itself satisfying. It’s the enjoyment of outrage, the thrill of righteous anger. The French term jouissance captures that weird pleasure-in-displeasure: the delicious anger of yelling at a protest or the morbid fascination of sharing stories of vaccine injuries.

We must also consider the social libido at work. Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego noted that crowds are held together by libidinal bonds – members of a sect or movement often have love for their leaders and fellow members, which compensates for or redirects their individual desires. In anti-vax groups, there is often a charismatic figure (a guru doctor, a YouTuber, etc.) who is adored as a truth-teller, and members develop strong affection for each other as “awake” compatriots. The conspiracy narrative becomes almost an erotic drama: the leader-figure whispers the secrets, the followers eagerly consume them, and they all share an exhilarating sense of participating in something bigger than themselves. This can be seen as a kind of fetishistic attachment as well – the conspiracy theory itself becomes an object of cathexis, imbued with libido. It is cherished and defended as passionately as a lover. When one part of the conspiracy narrative is debunked, it’s akin to an attack on a loved object, often met with defensive rage or immediate rationalization to keep the narrative intact.

A recent psychoanalytic reading of the Plandemic conspiracy documentary remarked how conspiracy communities create a feedback loop of enjoyment: “each time we find a hidden clue… we jolt in excitement” as piece after piece seems to fall into place. But, crucially, the final revelation is always postponed, which means the chase can continue indefinitely. This endless postponement of closure is not a failure of the movement; it is the source of its vitality. It keeps the libidinal engine running. Think of QAnon’s constantly deferred predictions – each failed prophecy (e.g. a foretold arrest of elites that never happens) doesn’t typically disillusion believers entirely; instead, many double down with a new interpretation. From a jouissance perspective, this makes sense: the failure is what sustains the desire. If “The Storm” (QAnon’s promised day of reckoning) ever truly came, the game would be over – enjoyable tension lost. As one Lacanian scholar quipped, conspiracy theorists “unconsciously aspire to fail” in order to prolong their satisfaction.

In summary, the libidinal enjoyment of conspiratorial thinking is a key reason why movements like anti-vax persist against all rational odds. Facts and debunking alone cannot compete with enjoyment. A person who has organized a good portion of their jouissance around being in the anti-vax conspiracy world will not easily give that up – it would be experienced as a real loss, even a kind of mourning. As psychoanalyst Todd McGowan points out, we often enjoy our symptoms because they give consistency to our desire. For the anti-vaxxer, the entire complex of resisting authority, bonding with fellow “truth warriors,” playing detective, and feeling the exhilaration (and terror) of apocalyptic beliefs is their symptom – and it is profoundly enjoyed. Breaking someone out of that requires not only countering false beliefs but potentially helping them find alternative sources of meaning and excitement in life. Otherwise, removing the conspiracy might leave a void of jouissance that the person is unwilling to bear.

Conclusion

The anti-vaccination phenomenon, often superficially dismissed as ignorant or “crazy,” reveals layers of psychological meaning when examined through a psychoanalytic lens. What we see as public health perplexity is also a theater of unconscious dramas: individuals and groups deploying defenses to manage anxiety and preserve self-esteem, re-enacting family romances of rebellion against authority, protecting fragile selves from narcissistic injury, and even deriving illicit enjoyment from their outsider status and transgressive narratives. Terms like hysteria, paranoia, or perversion in this context are not insults, but frameworks that help us map these phenomena to known psychic structures. The label of “mass hysteria” might be used loosely to describe anti-vax panic, but as we’ve seen, the reality includes hysterical elements (emotional excess and challenge to authority), paranoiac elements (delusions of persecution), and perverse elements (fetishistic denial of reality) all coexisting.

Crucially, psychoanalysis encourages us to approach these individuals with curiosity and empathy rather than scorn. If an anti-vaxxer is in the grip of denial, we ask: Denial of what feared thing? If they reject authority, we ask: What does that authority represent in their inner world? If they fear the vaccine, we ask: What unconscious scenario is being triggered? And if they seem to perversely enjoy spreading frightening conspiracies, we ask: What libidinal satisfaction do they gain, and what lack does it fill? These questions open a door to understanding, which is a necessary step if we hope to bridge the divide.

In practical terms, appreciating the psychoanalytic dimensions of anti-vax belief can inform public health and communication strategies. Rather than just inundating with facts (addressing the rational mind), one must also address the emotional and symbolic mind. This might mean finding ways to reduce the narcissistic stakes (avoiding shaming, offering respect for the individual’s concerns), providing a sense of agency and safety to counter intrusion fears (e.g. involving vaccine-hesitant individuals in the decision process in a collaborative way), and even channeling the desire for specialness into less harmful avenues (for instance, framing vaccination as a courageous, responsible choice—appealing to a positive narcissism of being a protector of others). The psychoanalytic perspective reminds us that in every anti-vaxxer there is a story of unmet needs, conflicts, and desires that their stance is, in however distorted a fashion, trying to address. If we ignore that story, we fail to reach the person.

Finally, the convergence of psychoanalysis and the anti-vax phenomenon speaks to the broader collective psychopathology of our times. In an era of rapid change, information overload, and institutional insecurity, it is perhaps not surprising that many gravitate toward fetishistic certainties and paranoid explanations. Psychoanalysis, with its century-plus of experience with the unruly unconscious, offers a sobering insight: we are not fully rational creatures, especially when faced with fear and loss. The anti-vax movement is a mirror reflecting collective anxieties—about our bodies, our trust in others, our place in a confusing world. By analyzing that mirror, psychoanalysis doesn’t just explain anti-vaxxers; it holds a light to irrational tendencies in all of us. The hope is that through understanding comes a measure of compassion and more effective action, ensuring that life-saving science can prevail not by force alone, but by healing the underlying psychic rifts that make some recoil from it.

Works Cited (Annotated)

• Putois, Olivier, & Julie Helms. (2022). “The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and ‘Anti-vax’ Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach.” Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 886368. – In this recent paper, Putois and Helms offer a psychoanalytic interpretation of COVID-19 vaccine refusal. They argue that many anti-vaxxers engage in fetishistic denial: the individual clings to an “almighty” object (such as faith or a natural remedy) that allows them to deny the reality of COVID-19 risk ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ) ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ). This defense involves a splitting of awareness – the danger is both acknowledged and disavowed ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ). The authors use clinical observations to explain why anti-vaxxers are often accused of selfishness: by refusing the vaccine, they unconsciously force others (doctors, society) into a caretaking role, effectively outsourcing the work of protection while they maintain a narcissistic fantasy of invulnerability ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ) ( The Role of Denial in Vaccine Skeptics and “Anti-vax” Blame: A Psychodynamic Approach - PMC ). This paper is a valuable contemporary application of Freudian and Kleinian concepts (denial, splitting, fetishism) to real-world vaccine hesitancy.

• Scacco, Sofia, & Claudia Di Gianfrancesco. (2022). “A Psychoanalytic and Philosophical Reading of Plandemic.” Awry: Journal of Critical Psychology, 1(1), 63–78. – Scacco and Di Gianfrancesco analyze the notorious conspiracy film “Plandemic” through Lacanian theory and critical psychology. They examine how conspiracy narratives provide a sense of meaning and jouissance (excessive enjoyment) in a destabilized postmodern world. The authors highlight the paradox that conspiracy believers derive libidinal satisfaction from the very failure of their theories to attain closure. Citing Derek Hook’s work, they note that each “hidden clue” uncovered gives a jolt of excitement, keeping the follower on a self-perpetuating thrill ride. They also discuss how conspiracies turn abstract social anxieties (a diffuse, “inconsistent social authority”) into more manageable fantasies of secret cabals, which, however frightening, are psychologically more comforting than randomness. This article provides a rich Lacanian interpretation of the enjoyment and transgression in conspiracy thinking, directly relevant to the anti-vax mindset of finding special “forbidden” knowledge.

• Hook, Derek. (2017). “What is ‘Enjoyment as a Political Factor’?” Political Psychology, 38(4), 605–620. – In this paper, Lacanian scholar Derek Hook explores how enjoyment (jouissance) underpins political and ideological behavior, including conspiracy beliefs. Hook uses examples of conspiracy theorizing to illustrate that beyond manifest content, the process of theorizing is driven by enjoyment. He famously observes that “when following a conspiracy theory, we can get a nugget of enjoyment each time we find a hidden clue: connecting dot after dot, we jolt in our excitement that each piece falls into place”. This insight helps explain why conspiracies like anti-vax thrive: they are enjoyable puzzles that activate unconscious desires. Hook’s work, though not about vaccines per se, provides a framework for understanding the libidinal grip of the anti-vax narrative, showing that attempts to counter it must reckon with the pleasure it affords its adherents.

• Webb, Richard E., & Philip J. Rosenbaum. (2023). “Conspiracy Theory Vulnerability from a Psychodynamic Perspective: Considering Four Epistemologies Related to Four Developmental Existential-Relational Positions.” Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 11(2), 334–353. – Webb and Rosenbaum offer a contemporary psychodynamic model for why certain individuals are drawn to conspiracy theories. They propose that one’s early developmental experiences and relational patterns shape distinct “epistemologies” – ways of knowing and believing – that can make conspiracy thinking more tempting. For example, a person stuck in a mode of needing absolute certainty (due to early unpredictability) may gravitate to conspiracies for their black-and-white answers; another who feels chronically helpless might embrace a conspiratorial worldview that provides a clear enemy to oppose (regaining a sense of agency). Although not focused only on anti-vax, this work directly addresses collective psychopathology in the context of misinformation and shows how developmental psychology and psychoanalysis can illuminate the persistence of irrational beliefs in adulthood. It’s a useful scholarly attempt to map different psychodynamic profiles among conspiracy believers, which can include anti-vaxxers, and to tailor interventions accordingly.