WHY PEOPLE DO WHAT THEY DO

WHY PEOPLE DO WHAT THEY DO…

There is one more area that I need to touch on before moving into more specific situation and that is the topic of behavior.

Behavior is one of the very few parts of our lives that is always a choice.  Good or bad, right or wrong what we do in any given situation is always a choice.

There may be outside factors or situations that affect our judgment, but in the final analysis what we choose to do and how we choose to treat people is a choice that we make.  No one and no situation makes us do anything, although people love to point to outside factors as a reason for making bad choices.   This is called  rationalization  and we will talk more about  that at a later time.

All behavior has consequences (good or bad) and we hate to take responsibility for bad choices that result in bad consequences.  It is the usual tactic of blaming what happened on someone else or something else that releases us from the feelings of guilt for what we did.   This is called remorse and it is an emotion that sociopaths and psychopaths don’t possess.

It is important to understand that all behavior meets a need or fills a desire the person has.  The need or desire may be completely dysfunctional, but to the person is something they consider important.  Whether its drugs, or money, or  even something like jealousy or wanting to be liked, to the individual acting on their behavior any negative outcome can always be rationalized away and its effect on others (even friends) is unimportant as long as the need is met.

My number one belief about counseling is that people will continue a behavior, no matter how bad or dysfunctional, as long as it gets them what they want.  If it stops being successful then, they are ready to look at alternative behaviors.

I realize this is a brief overview of a very complex concept, but for now it should serve the purpose and we can expand as we go along.  Now we can deal with specific incidences and why people chose certain behaviors………………….. let’s start with friendships.