In this article, the author argues that desymbolization, as a process, is not only destructive, but can also be in the service of life and psychical evolution. Drawing on clinical material and theoretical references from Freud, Laplanche and other contemporary psychoanalysts, as well as philosophical contributions, the author highlights the synergy of desymbolizing and symbolizing mechanisms in a process of continuous reorganization of the psychical apparatus. Anxiety is then associated with the desymbolization produced between two symbolizations. Transitional moments, such as adolescence, and experiences of a more or less traumatic nature, such as seduction, provide opportunities for desymbolizations, which may subsequently promote maturational processes of resymbolization. In such cases, the capacity for receptive passivity plays an essential role. Analytical work is therefore a desymbolizing and resymbolizing process par excellence.