Why do we repeat patterns from our childhood?
As adults, why do we repeat traumatic events or childhood dynamics expecting different results? Why do we self-sabotage and go into unhealthy situations? I explore Sigmund Freud’s ‘Repetition Compulsion’ and how to break bad habits. [10.2.25.]
Key points
Repetition Compulsion & self-sabotage: As adults, we often repeat past trauma from childhood because it’s familiar. Also, Freud’s “Death Drive” suggests we have a tendency to self-destruct or self-sabotage.
Breaking the cycle: Integrative therapy can help break unconscious patterns, emotional dysregulation and conditioned responses. By understanding the root cause we can question our core beliefs and rewrite a new story.
Therapy helps: Integrative and somatic (body-based) therapy helps to go beyond talking about our issue. We can connect to our bodily sensations, learn about what triggers us, and calm ourselves through grounding and inner resourcing practices.
What is Repetition Compulsion?
As adults we may seek similar experiences that echo our childhood trauma and family dynamics (also known as trauma reenactment). This is an unconscious compulsion to repeat emotionally and physically painful past situations.
Sigmund Freud’s Death Drive and why we self-sabotage
Sigmund Freud asserted that as adults, we unconsciously recreate early emotional experiences from childhood, even if they’re painful or traumatic.
In “Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through,” (1914) he explained that instead of remembering childhood trauma, adults tend to act them out in their relationships and life choices. For example, if someone grew up with emotionally unavailable parents, they may find themeselves seeking partners who are also cold and distant.
Freud believed we’re subconsciously driven to gain mastery and improve our early life situation but without insight we often just continue the traumatic cycle, passing down bad habits. He later suggested repetition compulsion may be linked to our death drive, an innate tendency toward self-sabotage and self-destruction. The death drive ensures we repeatedly seek out self-harm as our repressed memories and traumas keep shaping our conscious actions.
Freud believed that therapy could help understand how we engage in repetition compulsion and are influenced by the death drive. Psychoanalysis aims to uncover unconscious motivations making ourselves aware of forgotten destructive behaviours and traumas. Therapy can also help us become aware of our emotional patterns so we can make better (conscious) choices.
Why do people repeat traumatic events?
Reasons why we may repeat traumatic events in adulthood are:
Unconscious patterns: Without understanding our patterns, we may engage with destructive behaviours because they are what are normal and familiar to us (since childhood).
Emotional dysregulation: Some have grown up with parents who modelled poor emotional regulation (struggling to tolerate difficult emotions and criticism by overreacting), passing down bad habits and hyper-arousal.
A sense of control: Some seek dangerous situations unconsciously because they feel in control in this environment.
Unhealthy relationships: Childhood neglect and trauma can normalise unhealthy relationships and attachments. Therefore adults may repeat similar dynamics from their childhood as it’s familiar.
Conditioned responses: If trauma has been repeated, this ensures trauma is normalised. The person may be conditioned to respond in a certain way over time (the result of repeated behaviours that reinforce who we think we are).
Achieving mastery: Freud suggested that adults with traumatic childhoods tend to repeat past experiences, reenacting their trauma as a way to understand, heal and master the trauma. Without therapy or insight, this leads to more trauma, confusion and self-sabotaging behaviours.
Hyper-arousal theory: Hyper-arousal (becoming acutely aware of potential threats and dangers in your environment) may be linked to repetition compulsion as someone can be triggered by something that reminds them of their childhood trauma, which limits rational judgement. This ensures they repeat self-sabotaging habits.
Distraction from pain: Addictive behaviour (e.g. drinking, overeating, binge-watching TV, over-stimulation of IT) can be seen as a way to recreate an experience or help distract/numb a person from their inner feelings of pain and confusion.
Examples of Repetition Compulsion
Understanding repeated childhood patterns can bring awareness of why we unconsciously want to sustain them. Only then can the conscious choice be made to break bad habits and patterns.
Examples from my life
Romantic partners: In the past, I’ve dated avoidant men who echo my father’s attachment style. Of course, this was unconscious but it’s said that we’re attracted to partners who remind us of our parents (as this is what is normalised and familiar).
Repeating bad jobs: In the recent past, I wondered why I’d get difficult writing jobs with bad bosses. Repeating what we know (bad jobs or situations) could be seen as an attempt to relive difficult situations, expecting it to get better (mastery).
Conflicts: I grew up in an argumentative household when I was a child. When I first had my baby my partner and I argued a lot as I considered this normal. Only when I questioned my behaviour was I conscious enough to realise I needed to change.
How can integrative (and somatic) therapy help?
Talk therapy may give relief but somatic therapy often goes deeper. Integrative and somatic (body-based) therapy can get to the heart of the issue by understanding the root cause of distress:
Root cause: Often we come into therapy with anxiety or struggles that repeat themselves. Integrative therapy will explore the root cause of the issue by looking at thought patterns, and deeper emotions and habits. Instead of merely treating the symptoms (e.g. anxiety, self-sabotage, conflicts), integrative therapy reveals and heals the deeper core wound(s). This is a gradual process, as somatic tools pinpoint our triggers and strong emotions (shame, anger, fear). We can then give more space and understanding to our reactions so we can respond differently.
Calm the nervous system: By connecting with the body we understand that trauma and big emotions are often stored in the body (e.g. stress, trauma, anger etc). By being more mindfully aware of bodily sensations, there is an opening to understand childhood emotional wounds that may not be accessible through “talk-therapy” alone. Understanding our overreactions can help us grow healthy coping strategies, calming the nervous system and grounding us when stressed.