Why do some people whose lives are going well-- who have satisfying relationships and work that matters to them-- have trouble appreciating what they have? Why do they continually focus on what they they don’t have-- a more prestigious job, a partner who shares more of their interests or other things they feel they’re missing? Why do they constantly criticize themselves for not having these things?For many years, philosophers and psychologists believed that human behavior was motivated by seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. They therefore had a difficult time explaining why some people seek out painful experiences or have trouble experiencing the good things in their lives. Philosophers, beginning with Plato, debated the problem of akrasia, of why we knowingly act in ways that don’t serve our interests.Freud invented the death instinct to explain why people intentionally, if not consciously, do things that are harmful to them.A recent article in Psychology Today discusses some interesting research that helps to explain why people develop self-punishing patterns of thinking and feeling. The research demonstrates that we’re motivated to do what we do by what the article calls our “self-views”--our sense of who are, our sense of identity-- and not just our desires to experience pleasure and avoid pain. As the article states, “researchers found that participants with low self-esteem were less motivated to feel good because feeling good was inconsistent with their negative self-views, and because they didn't feel they deserved to feel good. “In other words, we tend to experience things in ways that confirm our views of who we are. The person who believes she is a productive member of her team at work will brush off her colleagues’ critical remarks. The person who questions her worth will not only not brush it off. She’ll dwell on it and use it to punish herself by seeing it as yet more evidence that there’s something wrong with her.The most fascinating part of the article deals with the ways in which expectations influence self-views. People who have had painful experiences sometimes tell themselves that “things happen for a reason”. This can often be a comforting belief. However, as the article states, this belief can also make people feel worse if it reinforces their feeling that the reason bad things happen to them is because there is something wrong with them and they therefore deserve to be treated badly.Unfortunately, I think the author’s prescription for counteracting self-punishing tendencies doesn’t jibe with her description of the research. The author states, “So the next time you feel the urge to suffer for your sins, consider other ways of coping that can give you the same benefits without causing further pain. Some ideas: practice self-compassion and self-forgiveness, try to repair damaged relationships, and learn from your mistakes.”If we have actually done something wrong, self-compassion and self-forgiveness, repairing damaged relationships and learning from mistakes are definitely in order. In my experience, however, the people who are most self-punishing are people who think they are guilty of what one psychologist has called “imaginary crimes”. Because they feel that there is something wrong with them, they criticize themselves for thoughts and actions that harm no one but themselves. The remedy for this kind of self-punishment involves the more difficult task of changing your “self-view”, of coming to recognize that you do deserve to feel good and that constant self-criticism only reinforces your belief that you deserve to suffer. 18 July 2012
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