Repetition compulsion is a psychological phenomenon in which a person repeats a shocking event or its circumstances over and over again. This includes restructuring the event or putting themselves in situations where the event is likely to happen again. This "re-living" can also take the form of dreams in which memories and feelings of what happened are repeated, and even hallucination.
Why it is that so many children who were neglected or abused end up either becoming abusers themselves, or they get into relationships with abusers? It seems to defy logic. Why is it that we seem to get into the same type of relationships over and over again? Why is that we even choose the same type of environment to live in or work at even though we really didn’t like it the first time around?
The concept of the "repetition compulsion" is a central idea in psychoanalysis. The compulsion to repeat is curious because what is repeated is usually not pleasurable. It is typically a painful and destructive pattern of feeling and behaving. A common question you hear is: "Why do I keep doing this?"
Different brands of psychotherapy explain the causes of repetition compulsions in a variety of ways. For example, some therapists treat the repetitions as bad habits that can be changed by conditioning. Others view the repetitions as illogical ways of thinking that can be changed by rational thinking. These repetitive feeling states and behaviours were originally necessary to adapt to environment for the purpose of survival, but later on and once we have moved out of this isolated incident, they are self-destructive.
Even though one might say, repeating makes perfect, this behaviour can be quite self-defeating. We go through repetition compulsion by processes known as: displacement and projection. Displacement means experiencing and treating one person as if he/she were someone else. Projection is around experiencing another person as if he/she feels what you feel. This is the part that someone would do an instant mind-reading on what I may be feeling about them and mostly thinking that I feel they are bad. The feelings and experiences that the person going through this behaviour has toward the other person, is called "transference".
The general feeling around this phenomenon is that it simply represents a desire to return to a situation that feels familiar and comfortable - despite the fact that it may be destructive - for its own sake – the devil you know better than the devil you don’t – so to speak.
Some also believe that we revisit these earlier traumas in unconscious search of mastery and healing. In other words, we hope that we can replay the trauma and, this time, succeed and grow through the process. They may view the repetition compulsion as a vital part of healing and advise us not to avoid it, but rather to learn how to better handle those repetitive situations so that we can break the cycle.
I describe this behaviour as “emotional addiction”. There is a very large range of emotions and variations of emotions that we experience. Anger, guilt, jealousy, hate, love, greed, lust, sexual arousal, curiosity, depression, boredom, dislike, victimhood, hysteria, defiance, and excitement are just a few to mention. While there are many, many emotions, there are only two feelings. And those two feelings are Fear or Love. We are bio-electro-chemical beings while we dwell in our bodies. Our bodies are producing chemical reactions continuously.
If the body stopped producing chemical reactions it would cease to live. Every emotion we experience creates a chemical reaction in our body. We can say that every emotion is a chemical reaction. Being a chemical reaction, a bio-chemical body is needed for that emotion to be fully experienced. All emotions initiate within our physical body as a result of chemical reactions produced by a sensory and mental input which I like to refer to as perception. When we hear someone say something to us, our bodies create a chemical reaction that matches fear or love, leading to the related emotions and actions designed for that particular emotion.
This is a very basic example of how emotions are chemical reactions happening within our bodies. Every time our body experiences one of these emotions/chemical reactions a pheromone is produced and emitted. It's the natural result of that chemical reaction. It's because when we are in fear we are giving off fear pheromones as a result of the emotion/chemical reaction called fear being experienced within us.
So every emotion has a certain chemical production that goes along with it and one can in actuality be very much addicted to this particular substance. Those who are abused, if the abuse goes on for a certain amount of time, they get addicted to the feeling, emotions and the chemicals that go along with it. So no matter how they physically believe that this particular situation is not working for them, their entire being says “yes” to that particular chemical. Hence subconsciously, they will do all that is necessary to make sure the scenario or similar scenarios are repeated.
We know over-drinking is not good and we still have people that are drunk. We know substance abuse is not good but we have plenty of heroin and other drug addicts. Just because we know it is not good has almost never blocked us from doing it. The first step in any addiction is the recognition of addiction to any chemical. Some people are addicted to anger, some anxiety and some worry. These people however do not really have a Betty Ford clinic to go to, to wean them from the habit. Their habit is really not recognized as a problem.
So to kick this habit of repeating what is not working for us, the first step is to realize that we are in this loop. Next, is to take responsibility as opposed to blame everyone and anything in saying that we were pushed into that situation. And last but not least, just start a new habit of paying attention to what is going on inside us at all times. This will make us realize when we are craving a certain emotion and if that is not going to work to our advantage, we can stop.
In Love & Light,
EL