Are People Really as Stupid as they Often Act?

Einstein reportedly said that the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again but expecting a different result. In psychotherapy, we see a lot of self-destructive and self-defeating people who, by that definition, must be insane. Except they are not psychotic, so they are not acting this way because they are delusional. An alternate explanation: they are just too stupid to see how unproductive their chronic repetitive behavior actually is. If you are looking for evidence of stupid human behavior, it certainly is easy to find.

But are they really that stupid? I mean, if you step on something that causes a 2 X 4 to knock you in the face, you might miss the connection once or twice. But would you be oblivious to that if it happened repeatedly? Of course not! Even if you had an IQ of 70. So this raises the question, why do people persist in dysfunctional behavior if they really are not that stupid?

Readers of this blog will already know how I answer this question. If someone keeps doing the same things and getting the same results, those results are the ones they are aiming to get! A good way to determine what people are really going after in these cases is looking at what I call the net effect or end results of the behavior. Of course, people claim not to know why they persist even though it becomes painfully obvious when looked at in this way. But they are lying to you – as well as often lying to themselves.

In actuality, they are willfully blind to the consequences of their behavior. Or, some might say, they are in denial. But at some level, they have to know what they are doing. They just refuse to think about it. In fact, they are acting out a false self meant to stabilize unstable attachment figures. They are playing a role. They are literally acting. To be a good actor, you have to really believe you are the character you are playing, but at some level you know you are not (the actor’s paradox).

Another way to keep one’s true self from rising to the fore is to continually devalue it with irrational beliefs as described here. 

Some religions, while they clearly offer much comfort to many people, may also encourage beliefs that feed into people devaluing themselves. They do this in order to enforce group conformity and, when they deem it necessary, sacrificing oneself for the good of the group. For instance, some churches basically teach that in God’s eyes we are all reprehensible sinners, and that the only way to be saved is to do what the church leaders of that particular denomination tell you to do. They preach that you should put God first, your family second, and yourself last.

How to Fail at Family Problem Solving

In prior posts, I have discussed what I call the principle of opposite behaviors as it applies to repetitive behavior in personality disorders as well as in recurring dysfunctional family behavior. It is related to an idea that I call the net effect of behavior: that if someone always gets the same results from their actions, and they keep doing it anyway, then the result they get is the result they are trying to get.

The principle of opposite behaviors applies in those cases in which someone repeatedly does the exact opposite of what another person is doing, yet repeatedly gets the same results anyway. Or those cases in which a person goes from one extreme to the other, and still always ends up in the same place.  Prior examples discussed in this blog: Parents who let their kids do anything they want versus those who try to control their every move; those who never ask anyone for anything versus those who ask people for the moon.

This post is about how the principle of opposites applies to metacommunication — family members discussing both their mutual interactions and the family dynamics over several generations. As readers of this blog know, I believe that doing so is the most effective way to solve problems and put a stop to ongoing dysfunctional interactions which trigger psychological symptoms and troublesome behavior. It is the "curative" part of my psychotherapy, which I call Unified Therapy.

When I discuss this idea on either this blog or on my blog on Psychology Today, I am usually besieged with comments saying that readers have tried this and it just doesn't work, or that I cannot appreciate that their family members are totally incapable of stopping abusive, distancing, or other provocative behavior.

I always reply that I do not blame anyone for not believing what I say about how metacommunication is both possible and effective in any family in which members are not fragrantly psychotic or a victim of brain damage or Alzheimer's disease. In fact, when I first broach this ideas with my own psychotherapy patients, I frequently get this response. Patients tell me that I couldn't possibly know how impossible their particular family can be.

Oh, but I do. In fact, I've almost always seen families that are far worse. And it is true, I add, that metacommunication done poorly can make a family problem even worse. Then I go on to say that doing it well is extremely difficult and that if it were easy, the patients would have already done it. 

In order to do it well, they have to become aware of things about their family and its members that they could not possibly have known before. Last, every family is different, so I can't just tell them right off how to proceed. Therapy is a complex process by which the right interventions are devised prior to any actual attempts at implementing them.

So why do folks who have tried to talk about family issues get into trouble? Well, again, every family is different, but we can discuss some general issues. It is much easier to talk about what does not work than trying to predict what will work in a given family or with a given relative. 

For this post, I invoke the principle of opposite behaviors: talking too much about something— especially if one always goes about it in the same way—is as futile as not talking about it at all. In either event, nothing gets resolved.

Obviously, trying to ignore an issue might work for a short time, but the issue will continue to hang over the heads of the participants like the proverbial Sword of Damocles, and things will eventually blow up. Or there will be an emotional cutoff in which family members try to divorce one another. But even that does not prevent the issues from continuing to contaminate the participants' other relationships, particularly between them and their lovers and children.

So what "doesn't work?" Here is a short list: blaming, accusing, and saying some variant of "You're bad (or evil, or stupid)," "You hate me," or "You did this to me." Getting angry rather than trying to hear the other person out, and/or becoming defensive rather than being thoughtful about what might be the kernal of truth in what the other person is saying. Not giving the other person the benefit of the doubt no matter what they say.

Another big one is invalidation. There are several variants of this. One of the most obvious is denial of events such as child abuse when both parties to the conversation know very well what happened. 

Telling the other person what they are feeling rather than asking them what they are feeling is another well known example.

A less well-known pattern is when each party is so keen on making their own points that they do not address the points that the other person is making at all. They steamroll any exchange by talking over each other, by completely ignoring what the other person has said in response to something they said, or through other ways of refusing to acknowledge the other person's point of view at all as they continue to make their own additional points.

Interestingly, people talking about a family problem can move on to discuss a related issue without ever having come to any agreement on the initial issue that was broached - so that neither of the issues is addressed fully. Sometimes people make a big circle, bringing up one related or tangential issue after another without achieving any resolution of any one of them, and then at long last returning to the initial issue. And then starting the whole circle all over again from the beginning!

Last is the best illustration of how talking too much leads to the same results as talking too little. After achieving some resolution of an issue, the parties continue to bicker incessantly about it, refusing to drop it even though, if they followed up on their initial plans, the problem would have been solved. In a commonly discussed example, some members of couples are well known for repeatedly bringing up an old grievance even decades after the problematic event took place.

There are a lot of ways to fail.

Do the Opposite of Your Parents, but Get the Same Results

"Letters, we get letters

We get lots and lots of letters"

On my post of October 5, 2011, I tried my hand at writing a newspaper advice column.  As I occasionally get interesting queries in comments on my blogs or as e-mails, I figured it was time to try once again.  I'm sure I will get absolutely no invitations from any newspaper to write a regular column just like the last time, but what the hay?

A reader asked a very important question after reading my Psychology Today blog post, a version of which has also appeared on this blog, Does One Need to Forgive Abusive Parents to Heal?  With the writer's  permission, her question and my answer will be reproduced shortly.

The exchange mentions what I consider to be an extremely important issue – something I have also briefly discussed in previous posts:  the phenomenon of parents who were themselves abused as children making such an extreme effort to be and act nothing like their own parents that they go to the opposite extreme. They over-indulge and over-protect their children to the point where the children are smothered.  

The children are then induced to refuse to grow up and become independent, because they believe that their parents have a pathological need to control, manipulate, and/or take care of them.  They may appear to be incapable of doing many things for themselves which they are, in point of fact, quite capable of doing.  They just will not do so for the reason I just quoted.  It is a lot easier to fake incompetence than it is to fake competence.

This is an illustration and an example of a principle I discussed in my very first book, A Family Systems Approach to Individual Psychotherapy, that I call the Principle of Opposite Behaviors.   I will explain that in more detail after I present the letter and my response:

Thank you for your article. There is one point that you have not mentioned in your article and that is - beyond the forgiveness, how does a victim of childhood abuse go on in life?

I am in my mid thirties and I was physically, emotionally and verbally abused by both my parents. Strangely enough, they were also loving, kind and encouraged me and my sister to do our best. On the one hand I was taught I could achieve anything I wanted and on the other hand I felt like I was barely human and did not deserve to take up any space. I grew up to be relatively successful but I continue to be plagued by severe self doubts, lack of self confidence and self sabotage. I thought about suicide several times in my teens and twenties. In my late twenties I met the man who became my husband and he has helped restore me to being what I could have been if I came from a healthy home. However, I continue to find life difficult and struggle to be happy. 

My parents, especially my father, have changed completely since I left home in my late teens. They are now the kind of parents one can only dream about, and have supported and encouraged me in every way possible throughout my adulthood to date. They have helped me financially, emotionally and physically. They have said they regret the way they treated me and want to make amends. Whenever I do meet them now, we have a great time together.

The trouble is that I recently gave birth to a child. And when I hear their advice about taking good care of him and not letting him be sad, I can't help but remember how badly they treated me when I was a small child. Where was the consideration and empathy then?

My point and my question are as follows. If one reconciles with previously abusive parents who are now repentant, how should one act when one continues to suffer the effects of childhood trauma on a daily basis?

Should I talk to my parents and tell them how their actions have damaged me and continue to hurt me? Should I call out their hypocrisy regarding their advice about raising my kid?

How do I go on?

Hi Wondering,

That's a good question, but I am afraid I cannot really give specific psychiatric advice to you without seeing you and finding out a whole lot more about your situation.

I can say that it sounds, just from what you wrote and not knowing more, that you are well on the way to recovery. Having children and not repeating family patterns that have been passed from one generation to the next is, however, always a challenge.

Someone like you will probably benefit enormously and fairly quickly from seeing a knowledgeable therapist. So what kind of therapist?

If someone like you is still sort of torturing themselves with negative thoughts, there are in most cases two possibilities:

1. The person is still getting double messages from one's family of origin about something - say, about being a good parent - and the person is trying to satisfy both ends of a double bind. In my hypothetical case, the parents might feel even worse about themselves if their child manages to raise children well.

In that case, I'd recommend looking for the kind of therapist that I described near the end of my previous post, Finding a Good Psychotherapist.

2. The person has obsessive tendencies and cannot seem to stop replaying old "tapes" of internalized dialog from when they were a child, despite the fact that the family of origin has stopped reinforcing (that is, feeding into) them.

In this case, a good CBT therapist (which is much easier to find than the other type), can help teach you ways to ignore the "tapes" even if they keep playing. Particularly, something called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy" (ACT), can teach you that you don't have to believe everything that you think.

I do want to make one more point about your post. Of course, you do not want to MAKE your child sad, but it is a HUGE parenting mistake to try to protect your child from all sadness. Doing this will lead the child to act as if he or she is grossly impaired in their ability to tolerate any adversity. They will have great difficulty with autonomy, up to the point where they may become completely crippled.

Parents who were abused themselves have a tendency to try to go to this opposite extreme, and end up creating almost the exact same problem for their child that they had! I call this the principle of opposites. Certain patterns of behavior, and what seem to be patterns at the complete opposite extreme, end up creating a nearly identical problem.

Anyway, I hope that's helpful. I wish you the best in your efforts to differentiate yourself from your family of origin.

The paragraph about parenting mistakes just above is the one that refers to the principle of opposite behaviors: The use of extreme or polarized behavior (a list of behavioral polarities can be found on my post of 8/24/10, Polar Exploration) can produce the same end result as behavior at the exact opposite extreme.

In this case, abusing children can impair a child's independence, but so can overprotecting them.  Opposite behaviors leading to the same end result (or what I call the net effect of the behavior).  

I gave another example of two opposite behaviors leading to an identical outcome in my post of 8/20/10, Final Destination: the Net Effect of Behavior.

The principle of opposite behaviors is one reason why different generations of members of a particular family may seem to alternate between opposites on a genogram.  A generation of alcoholics can produce a generation of teetotalers which in turn produces a generation of alcoholics, or a generation of nose-to-the-grindstone working types can generate children who are more hedonistic and irresponsible, who in turn generate children who are workaholics.  This is one of the mechanisms by which dysfunctional behavior is transmitted from one generation to another. 

If at First You Have Never Even Tried, Fail, Fail, Again

One of the most frequent debates I get into with patients and psychotherapy trainees alike is the true meaning of the oft heard statement, "I did not try to do (such and such) because I was afraid of failure."  This statement is made by patients and people in general all the time to explain away such decisions as not going back to school to learn a more lucrative trade or refusing to enter the dating pool.

The statement sounds to me like an excuse that is used to cover up a real reason why the person did not do something potentially beneficial.  But why do I think this?  Well, first of all, I wonder why these people are just assuming that they are going to fail when they have not even tried.  Nobody can do much of anything with a guarantee of success.  If we all demanded certitude in succeeding before attempting something new, no one would ever accomplish anything.

Second, if someone is afraid of something, that usually means they will go to great lengths to avoid that something.  If you are afraid of snakes, you try your best to avoid them.  If you are afraid of failure, that should mean that you should persistently keep trying to accomplish whatever it is until you succeed - in order to avoid the failure which you supposedly fear. 

So how exactly is not accomplishing something through sheer lack of effort at all a success? 

I know it is somewhat more discouraging if you fail at something after you have attempted to do it than if you never tried at all, but in both instances, you have failed!  And as I said, why would you presume that you were going to continue to fail?  Unless they are trying to do something that is clearly totally beyond their capability, physical capacity or talent, most people can succeed at a great many things.  A given person may have to work harder that the average Joe to achieve one or another particular goal, but if they were truly afraid of failure, they would in fact work as hard as necessary.

When  people do fail at an initial effort, they can learn from their mistakes and try again.  Instead of doing that, some people beat themselves up about the initial failure.  They tell themselves the irrational thought, well known by cognitive therapists, that just because they did not succeed the first time, they are just a miserable excuse for a human being who is bound to fail from that point in time until eternity.

If you keep telling yourself that, you will undoubted continue to fail, because you will never make the required effort.

What is even more surprising is hearing people offer the "fear of failure" excuse for not doing something a second time after they already had succeeded at it or something very similar the first time!  As a therapist, I hear this as well.  The lameness of the "fear of failure" excuse starts to become more obvious in this situation. 

I think people who use the fear of failure excuse are really afraid of success.  Failure is the end result (the net effect - see my post of August 20) of not making any effort to accomplish something.  Yet failure is what these people profess to fear.  This sounds like Orwellian doublespeak. Seeking out something that one claims to be afraid of. 

Why would people be afraid of success?  I find many patients who claim to fear failure believe that  it is their success that seems to destabilize their family of origin.  The others around them try to invalidate or make light of their efforts or even their achievements in any number of ways, appear jealous and resentful, and often accuse them of trying to be better than everyone else in the family. 

"Who the hell do you think you are, Mr. smarty pants?  You think you're so great?!  We know how you'll turn out!"  Imagine if everyone you know and love is saying things like that to you with all the vitriol they can muster.  Do you think you might be a bit intimidated?

When  people say that they fear failure, they are usually not actually lying, however.  "I am afraid of failure" is not a complete sentence.  We have to ask, failure to do what?  The failure to accomplish the ostensible task of which they speak?  That cannot be the answer to the question for the reasons I've mentioned.  The failure that they may fear is the failure to keep their family stable.  If they really try to succed at the ostensible task of which they speak, they will fail at keeping the family stable, and it is that failure that they fear.

In some cases, family invalidation of successful offspring (in the more ordinary sense of the word successful) is not nearly so extensive.   Some parents in fact push and push their children towards a specific goal like, say, becoming a physician, whether the child wishes to pursue that career or not.  However, when the child graduates from medical school, the parents appear to get depressed.  Sometimes they do not even come to the medical school graduation, and make an excuse for not coming that is oh so obviously lame. 

What I believe is happening here is that the parents are pushing their child to do what the parents always wanted to do but were not able to do - because of either family rules or external circumstances - and cannot for various reasons admit that that is what they are doing.  The parent then lives vicariously through the child.  According to psychiatrist Sam Slipp, the child in this case is playing the role of the parent's savior.

When the child is too successful, however, it reminds these parents that they did not get to do whatever it is they had been pushing their child to do.  That is usually why they get depressed, but the child has no way of knowing about this.  Often, the successful children then get depressed themselves. 

Sometimes after a child becomes what the parents really wanted to be, the parents start to send off negative messages that seem to indicate to their offspring that the offspring should back off on the achievement thing.  This, after the child gave up what he or she really wanted to do in order to be what the parent wanted! 

This betrayal is called a double bind on achievement.  The adult child living out his or her parent's dream is in a damned if you do, damned if you don't position.  If they do not achieve, they are criticized, but if they do achieve, they are still criticized or made to feel bad in some other way.  Sometimes, the only way out is a bizarre compromise. Example: get the MD degree, but keep failing the licensure exam.  That way it looks to the parents like their children are doing what the parents originally wanted, but failing at it all on their own.

Final Destination: The Net Effect of Behavior

Continuing some of the themes of two of my previous blog posts, (Mad, Bad, Blind or Stupid from 7/27, and Is It Live or Is It Memorex: the Actor’s Paradox from 8/7 about the repetition compulsion, I would now like to discuss two other concepts. I refer to them as the Net Effect of Behavior and the Principle of Opposite Behaviors.


In the previous post, I brought up the question of why people would continue with the same disastrous behavior patterns over and over again with the exact same disastrous results if they are not mad, bad, blind or stupid. To answer this, we first must figure out exactly what the self-destructive or self-defeating behavior patterns are designed to accomplish. I previously used the example of narcissists who continues to make most other people think they are assholes. They seem to feel entitled and superior to everyone, but that may be a manifestation of just how good actors they are, because of the Actor’s Paradox.

To answer the question, one must look at the end result of their repetitive behavior. It is usually something that is absolutely obvious to everyone but them and the people who form intimate, romantic relationships with them. The spouses, lovers, etc are, I submit, co-conspirators, who continually make lame excuses for the seemingly nonsensical behavior of their partner. This idea is analogous to the AA concept of the co-dependent.

The fact that their excuses are so obviously lame – again to everyone outside of the couple – tells me that the co-conspirators are also engaged in the repetition compulsion, because I believe that they too are neither mad, bad, blind, or stupid.

The upshot, if you will, of seemingly irrational behavior is what I refer to as the behavior’s net effect. If the net effect of the narcissists' behavior is that most everyone thinks they are assholes, and if they are not mad, bad or stupid, then that must be what they are trying to accomplish. They must want, at some level, to be thought of that way.

Actually, in therapy we always find that they are in fact ambivalent about the net effect of their behavior. They seem to compulsively act in ways that produce the desired final result, but at the same time the results make them miserable, and they are well aware of that as well!

So why would anyone want to be thought of that way? Are such people masochistic? Actually, I do not really believe in masochism either, and would add masochism to the list of things that people are not, in addition to mad, bad, etc. Pain is meant to be a warning device that should in most circumstances lead to a decrease in the behavior that caused it. For pain to be pleasure in some people is not only Orwellian doublespeak, it makes no sense from the standpoint of evolution.

In order to answer the question of why compulsive repeaters act in seemingly masochistic ways, I would have to discuss the whole concept of kin selection, which I do in my books but will have to save until some later post to discuss in this blog.

First, a little more about the counterintuitive conclusions one must draw if one follows this line of thinking. In western cultures where other options are available, if a woman stays in an abusive relationship, or moves from one to another to another, at some level she is aiming to produce this result. OOH, how non politically correct of me! This does not mean, however, that it is all her fault that she is being abused, or that the abuser should get a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. It just means that it is also not true that she has nothing at all to do with her plight. Yes, of course the abuser may stalk and even kill her if she leaves, but he may also kill her if she stays. The longer she stays in the abusive relationship, the higher the risk.

I recommend listening to the lyrics of the Eminem/Rihanna song I Love the Way You Lie, a link to which is posted on my Facebook fan page.

A corollary to the Net Effect of Behavior is something I refer to as the Principle of Opposite Behaviors. One can accomplish the net effect of behavior using a wide variety of different strategies. There is always more than one way to skin the proverbial cat. Some of these strategies may on the surface appear to be completely opposite or contradictory. For instance, if you are trying to make sure that other people never give you what you need from them – the mark of counter-dependency – you can accomplish this by never asking anyone for anything. That way no one really knows what you need from them, so you never get it.

You can also accomplish the exact same net effect or end result by asking for way too much, way too often. If you are a bottomless pit who is constantly demanding the moon from others, they get angry with you. When they are angry like that, they will run from you, unless they are prone to being co-conspirators. That way, you never get what you need from these people. The exact opposite behavior produces the exact same net effect.

Well, what about the co-conspirators? Does the counter-dependent get what he or she needs from them? A third strategy to not get what you need from others is to ask for what you want from people who are unable to provide it for you: alcoholics, deadbeats, sociopaths etc. Oh, and narcissists! These people do not end up giving you what you need either; hence, once again you have accomplished what you have set out to do: not get what you need from others.

This dynamic may be what is behind a common type of couple seen by couples therapists, the narcissistic male married to the female with borderline personality disorder. But that too is a subject for another post. Watch this space.