Why can it be difficult to change?

Why is it that we can know what the right thing to do is, but find ourselves refusing to do it? We might know that it is important to eat healthily, to exercise, to quit smoking, and to take responsibility for our lives. And yet we will experience a resistance inside of ourselves to doing the things we know on some level are in our own best interest. Instead, we might do what relieves our anxiety in the short term; binging, sleeping in, lighting up, holding on to the idea that someone else is responsible for relieving our suffering.

Intellectually we know what to do, but emotionally we desire something else. Change is difficult - there is a fight within ourselves for control. For each of us, this internal conflict may be more or less conscious. Perhaps only very dimly do we sense that we are damaging ourselves with our choices, or perhaps not at all. Yes, smoking is supposedly bad for us, but bad things only happen to other people. For others, lighting a cigarette might activate much more concentrated anxiety, even as they continue to find relief in the behaviour.

Anxiety is the core feeling that keeps our behaviours the same, or motivates us to change. We feel anxious, so we do something that immediately relieves the anxiety - something comfortable but often at a cost. And at times we can be very skilled in denying or suppressing the awareness of the cost.

When we emotionally acknowledge the cost, it becomes harder to maintain the behaviour. It forces us into a position of having to confront the reality of our choices. This can often be the catalyst for change.

How does this translate into therapy?

Therapy can be seen as an attempt to be honest with ourselves. Perhaps we come into therapy with a small part of ourselves wanting to change something, but a much bigger part of ourselves that is resistant to change. The therapist’s task is to meet you where you are - the small part of you that wants to change, as well as the big part that may want to stay the same. The assumption is that the part of you that wants to change is what is bringing you to therapy, but that it will be an effort and a journey to grow that part of yourself, because you have an internal counterforce that opposes change.

Everyone will experience different levels of motivation to change. The client who comes because his wife wants his behaviour to change may have a poorer prognosis than the client who comes because he feels deep within him that he is sabotaging his relationship, but he doesn't know how to stop. For the first man, the therapist may need to respect that it relieves his anxiety to avoid thinking about his contributions to his relationship issues. Change will therefore be slower, and hard-won. For the second man, there is a lot more leverage to work with, as the force that wants to change is a much stronger presence.

Therapy would proceed at a pace that respects both desires - the desire to stay the same, and the desire to change. When the desire to stay the same is dominant, the therapist may choose to prioritise understanding the felt necessity of this position. When the part of yourself that wants to change is present, this is an opportunity to explore it, to bolster it, to make it more real, more of a force that motivates you. Over time, this force should overtake the resistance to change.

Fundamentally, it is important to recognise that in therapy we are often grappling with ourselves and our usual ways of doing things. On one day we might seek the comfort of familiar ways of thinking. On another, we might be more prepared to try something different. The journey might involve a number of moves backwards and forwards. Backwards, to what is familiar and comforting, and forwards, into something unfamiliar, but ultimately healthier.

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