Sometimes we know exactly what we're doing—and even know it isn't helping—but somehow we keep doing it anyway. Understanding why can be one of the most useful parts of therapy.

One of the questions I've heard repeatedly over more than 20 years of doing therapy is some version of: “I know I do this. I even know it's not helping me. So why do I keep doing it?” It might be choosing essentially the same relationship with a different person, avoiding conflict until resentment builds and then exploding, procrastinating until a manageable task becomes a crisis, saying yes when you desperately want to say no, trying to keep everybody happy, or shutting down when somebody gets too close.

This is one of the places where I think therapy gets particularly interesting, because the most useful question usually isn't “What's wrong with me?” A better question is often, “Why does some part of me keep believing this is necessary?”

Most Patterns Once Made Sense

One of the ideas I return to frequently in therapy is that persistent patterns generally didn't appear out of nowhere. At some point, they often made sense. If you grew up in a home where conflict was unpredictable, becoming very good at reading everybody else's mood may have been useful. If expressing your needs led to criticism or rejection, learning not to need very much may have protected you. If achievement brought approval, working relentlessly may have become connected with feeling worthwhile. If relationships were unreliable, keeping some emotional distance may have prevented you from being hurt.

The problem is that human beings are remarkably good at carrying old solutions into new situations. A strategy that helped a ten-year-old navigate a difficult family can become troublesome when that ten-year-old is now 45 and trying to have an intimate relationship.

Hypervigilance that once protected someone can become exhausting. Independence can become isolation. Being accommodating can become resentment. Working hard can become burnout. Protecting yourself from rejection can eventually make genuine closeness almost impossible. The pattern isn't necessarily irrational. It may simply be outdated.

Different Ways of Understanding Our Patterns

There are many useful lenses for looking at recurring patterns, and I don't think one theory explains everything. Attachment theory can help us understand what we learned about closeness, safety and relationships. Trauma approaches help explain why the nervous system sometimes reacts to the present as though something from the past is happening again. Cognitive approaches examine the assumptions and beliefs we've accumulated about ourselves and the world.

I also find ideas from Internal Family Systems (IFS) particularly useful. Instead of treating an unwanted behaviour as an enemy that needs to be eliminated, we can become curious about the “part” of us that keeps doing it. What is it trying to accomplish? What is it afraid would happen if it stopped? The anxious part may be trying to prevent something terrible from happening. The perfectionistic part may be trying to prevent criticism or shame. The part that withdraws may be protecting us from rejection. Even anger can sometimes be protecting something much more vulnerable underneath it.

This doesn't mean every behaviour is healthy or should simply be accepted. It means that understanding the function of a pattern often gives us a better chance of changing it than attacking ourselves for having it.

Knowing Why Isn't Always Enough

Another frustration I hear quite often is: “But I already know why I do it.” And sometimes the person really does. They've read the books, thought about their childhood, understand their attachment style, and can explain exactly why they choose unavailable partners or become anxious when somebody doesn't text back. Intellectually, the whole thing makes perfect sense—and then Tuesday arrives and they do it again.

Insight is important, but insight and change aren't the same thing. Our patterns aren't stored only as ideas. They can also exist as habits, emotional responses, expectations about relationships and very rapid reactions in the nervous system. Sometimes the body is already reacting before the thoughtful part of the brain has had much opportunity to weigh in.

That's one reason therapy can involve more than talking about a problem. We may need to notice the pattern while it is happening, slow it down, understand what triggers it, recognize what happens in the body, and gradually experiment with another response.

Sometimes ADHD Is Part of the Picture

Sometimes what looks like a psychological pattern has another ingredient as well. An adult with ADHD may spend years thinking, “Why do I keep procrastinating? Why can't I just get organized? Why do I wait until the last possible moment?” Other people may have reinforced the idea that they're lazy, careless or simply not trying hard enough.

Difficulties with executive functioning, attention, motivation, emotional regulation and task initiation can all be part of ADHD. If we mistake those difficulties for character flaws, people can accumulate a tremendous amount of unnecessary shame. That doesn't mean ADHD explains everything either. Someone can have ADHD and anxiety, relationship patterns, old family learning, trauma or perfectionism. Good therapy, in my view, tries to understand the whole person rather than forcing everything into one explanation.

Relationships Have a Way of Finding Our Patterns

Relationships are particularly good at revealing the parts of ourselves we thought we'd already sorted out. You may be calm and confident at work but become remarkably anxious when a partner pulls away. You may be patient with almost everyone else and find that one particular expression on your partner's face can set you off instantly. Couples can find themselves having essentially the same argument for years, even though the subject keeps changing.

The argument appears to be about dishes, money, sex, parenting, the in-laws or somebody being ten minutes late. Underneath it may be something much more fundamental: Do I matter to you? Can I depend on you? Are you listening to me? Am I going to be controlled? Am I going to be abandoned? When we begin to recognize the pattern rather than simply arguing about its latest version, something starts to become possible.

From “What's Wrong With Me?” to “What's Happening Here?”

That shift in language may sound small, but I think it's important. “What's wrong with me?” already assumes we've discovered the problem: me. “What's happening here?” invites investigation.

When does this reaction appear? What seems to trigger it? What happens immediately beforehand? What do I feel in my body? What am I afraid will happen? What am I trying to prevent? Where else have I felt this? What might happen if, just this once, I responded differently?

I came to psychotherapy with an earlier background in science, and perhaps that has something to do with why I enjoy this part of the work. There is something almost investigative about it. We develop a hypothesis about what is happening, pay attention to the pattern, experiment with something different and see what we learn. But people aren't machines, and therapy isn't engineering. Understanding someone's history, relationships, emotions and lived experience requires compassion as much as analysis. Often the pattern we're trying so hard to get rid of developed for a very understandable reason.

Change Usually Happens a Little at a Time

People sometimes expect successful therapy to produce a dramatic moment when the pattern simply disappears. Occasionally something does shift remarkably quickly. More often, change is quieter. You notice the pattern five minutes after it happened instead of the next morning. Eventually you notice it while it's happening. Then one day you notice it just before it happens and have enough room to make a slightly different choice.

That may not sound dramatic, but that little bit of space is enormously important. Over time, the new response becomes less foreign. The old one isn't necessarily erased—we don't have to delete our history—but it no longer has quite the same control over what happens next.

And sometimes that is one of the most satisfying things about therapy: realizing that something you once thought was simply “the way I am” was actually a pattern. Patterns can be understood. And once we can see them clearly, they can begin to change.

— Rory Batchilder, M.Ed., RP, CCC
Registered Psychotherapist & Canadian Certified Counsellor