Dr. Max Belkin offers insight into your self-sabotaging behaviors and offers ways to stop.
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Many people engage in behavior that torpedoes their success and don’t understand why.
George, a graduate student in computer science, observes that he works on any and every project except for those that bring him closer to graduation. “I wonder what I could be getting out of not graduating,” he muses in one of our psychotherapy sessions. George and I have been examining what he might lose if he succeeds in his career. In particular, we focus on his struggle to reconcile his responsibilities for his family’s construction company with his identity as a computer science researcher.
With George, as well as several other patients, self-defeating behavior may indicate a fear of losing an essential part of who they are. Let me give some examples.
The Pull of Familial Bonds
Despite her efforts to lose weight, Lydia is prone to overeating. Growing up, she experienced her mother’s cooking as an expression of love and care. Whenever Lydia felt anxious or upset, her mother would offer her comfort food. And when her mother felt proud of her Lydia, she would show her appreciation by baking for her. As a result, for Lydia, eating became synonymous with feeling cared for by her mother, a powerful antidote to stress and anxiety. Thus, giving up comfort food and pastries feels like losing an emotional attachment to her mother—an important part of herself.
George’s loyalty to his family conflicts with his desire to navigate his own course in life.
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Similarly, Marjorie adored and idealized her late father. He was the kind of artist and intellectual that Marjorie aspires to become. So when he perished in a car accident, Marjorie was devastated. Although Marjorie claims that she wants to marry a peer, since the death of her father, she has been dating guys who are twice her age.
While professionally successful and fiercely independent, Marjorie craves feeling spoiled and taken care of by an older man, a father figure. It would make her feel special and safe. Because her father is gone, Marjorie believes that she can only have that experience in the arms of a much older lover. If Marjorie were to become involved with someone her own age, she would lose the part of herself that wants to always be “Daddy’s little girl.”
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When Family Expectations Clash With Personal Aspirations
To go back to George, his father was very proud of his son’s talent in science and math. But at the same time, he expected George to go into the construction business with him. By pursuing a graduate degree in computer science George feels he is betraying his father’s memory. But George is passionate about his research—it is very meaningful and rewarding to him. George can’t tolerate the anxiety and guilt of these conflicting thoughts so he keeps them out of mind by avoiding the work required to graduate.
Holding On to Different Parts of Himself
George’s loyalty to his family conflicts with his desire to navigate his own course in life. He can be his father’s heir in the construction business or a computer scientist, but he is unable to embrace both parts of himself at the same time. Since the two paths seem mutually exclusive, George believes that he must pick one over the other. Consciously, George shudders at the thought of not finishing his graduate program. But he is even more afraid to jettison the part of himself connected to his family.
Both his family business and his academic career are very important to him. In fact, both are central to how George views himself. So, as George and I have come to understand it, putting off his research projects allows George to avoid tackling the dilemma of his professional and personal identities. By postponing his graduation, George can work on his research without jeopardizing his sense of self as his father’s heir in the family business.
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Moving Forward
Since the tensions between George’s commitments to his family and his career lay outside of his conscious awareness, he was not able to look for ways to overcome this stalemate. Yet, as he learned to reflect on and articulate his personal and professional identities in our conversations, George began to register and acknowledge the emotions that are associated with them.
But George can’t be a successful computer scientist and run his family business at the same time.
Interestingly, George’s Dad dropped out of college to go into construction in defiance of his own father’s expectations. So, among other things, Dad modeled for him the importance of finding his own calling. After a long struggle, George finally decided to give up the role as the head of their family business.
George has come to realize that an unreflective, knee-jerk rejection of his family legacy would be detrimental to him. He has developed an ability to connect with different aspects of his personality at the same time, to let them have a conversation with each other. When George started to acknowledge and vocalize both his desire to stay loyal to his family and his commitment to doing research, he discovered that he can pick and choose who he wants to be without sabotaging his success in graduate school.
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Originally published: Psychology Today
Photo: Getty
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This popped up on my news feed this morning and it resonates well. We help families through a service called Exploring Tomorrow (www.exploringtomorrow.org), focusing primarily on helping the student, but also the parent-student dyad. I’d love to chat more with people if they are interested about our approach, but whom are also up for sharing their story! [email protected] Thank you Dr. Belkin!