What drives your behaviour?

When I’m dealing with therapy clients, I will sometimes encourage them to look for the principle behind their behaviour.

When I was young, I would watch friends and relatives and try to guess what was motivating their behaviour. Often I could work out what, unconsciously, they were trying to achieve. I would then watch them through the day, seeing whether I was right, seeing whether their behaviour was consistent with this unconscious principle.

Often, these principles operate on an ‘if…then’ system.

• If I go silent, then an aggressive other will go away
• If I find fault with the other person, then I will feel less vulnerable
• If I flatter the other person, then they will like me
• If I eat something sweet, then I will feel better

By watching, I found I could predict what an individual would do in response to a stimulus. They were operating according to unconscious principles of behaviour internal to them, which formed part of their character as long as they remained unaware.

Later, I found that becoming aware changed things. If a friend and I came to understand our previously unconscious principles of behaviour, then we could develop a sense of humour about them, and eventually the principles themselves would cease to dominate our behaviour.

In this way, a person who habitually goes silent in the face of aggression might come to see that this is what they have always done. They may also come to see that it’s not always appropriate to go silent in the face of aggression (because it frustrates communication). So, with encouragement, they may escape their unconscious principle, and free their behaviour to be more flexible and communicative.

Equally, a person who habitually finds fault with others when they themselves feel vulnerable, once they notice this, will see that this is what they always do. They will notice the times when they alienate those close to them by being critical instead of sharing their anxiety. They may see how they destroy intimacy and safety for others, in a single-minded quest to protect themselves.

And so it goes on. We start the cycle by being trapped by our unconscious principles, while we aren’t aware of them. Then, through self-observation, we become more aware of those unconscious rules, and of our inflexibility. Encouraged by friends or a therapist, we may then try alternative responses, inhibiting the first principle we were unconsciously operating from. In this way, we change our behaviour to something more flexible and useful.

In therapy, this often plays out between client and therapist. The client brings their daily life to the sessions, and gradually becomes more aware of the habitual ways (not always helpful) in which they respond to environmental triggers. They experiment with alternative responses, first in the safety of the counselling session, and then in real-life relationships. They begin to escape their inner traps.

What unconscious principles guide your behaviour? What do you find yourself always doing in response to particular triggers or perceived threats? Does this habitual response help or hinder your life?