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 resistance to change why is it so darn hard to change? Though it may seem silly, people are complicated and can simultaneously harbor attitudes that contradict each other. You can actually have one part of your mind and mental apparatus focused on making things better while another part actively resists change for one or more fairly reasonable reasons. Those reasons may be logical or illogical, strong or weak, entrenched or just oops! There is a joke about how many psychologists it takes to change a light bulb. The punchline is that it only takes one but the light bulb needs to want to change. But is that really all there is to change? It just doesn't seem to be that simple for us mammal light bulbs. For us, change is hard, complicated and kind of a multi-tasking challenge. We light bulbs have to be unafraid of change -- unafraid of what we might change into and unafraid of what losses might be experienced -- and unafraid of what other implications there may be connected to changing. For us to change, we have to swim against a current of environmental triggers and all sorts of internal psychological forces and external social forces that cause anxiousness and avoidance of changes -- no matter what good stuff those changes might bring. Below are some -- only some -- of the more common issues that get in the way of change. They are presented in no particular order and in no particular order of severity. Some of these are reasonable, logical causes for simply generally not wanting to change things. Some of these are simple glitches in judgement or logic or data collection. Some reach the level of toxicity and can be so extremely painful that many people wouldn't find it comfortable to imagine how someone can sustain such difficult attitudes and beliefs. All are presented more or less as they came to mind. All represent reasons for resistance to change that I have dealt with in my work as a psychologist. All would be classifiable, in my opinion, as "normal" reasons for resistance to change. The forms of resistance described below are not mutually exclusive nor mandatory. One person may find him- or herself dealing with a mix of any number of them. fear of losing one's "self" fear of the enormity of the work fear of easy change fear of getting stuck half-way fear of losing secondary gains fear of betting hope against change and losing hope fear of the responsibility of changes fear of happiness and self-esteem #1 fear of happiness and self-esteem #2 fear of letting someone else off the hook self-directed anger, not deserving of change unrealistic expectations environmental triggers social "supports" and pressures fear of losing friends and family old habits die hard baloney from another planet the requirement of mourning, absorption and self-pity the fear of letting loose, running amuck  fear of changing into someone else unknown It's often uncomfortable, impractical and possibly even detrimental or frightening to maintain bad habits, unhappy attitudes, anxieties and/or depression. But on the other hand, it is sometimes very frightening to make change(s) if it seems the change or changes might mean you will have a different life or feel or act differently. There is an expression that most people would prefer the devil they know than a devil they don't. Overcoming this obstacle can be tough. Sometimes it can be helpful to imagine your way through the changes you want to make and imagine how life will be if you make them. Sometimes it takes sitting down with a therapist or counselor and working on the issues that have you fearing change. fear of losing "self" Sometimes we think of changing something about us that is more than a little habit. Sometimes we want to change something that is more like a personal characteristic -- a part of our self-image. These can be problems that we know cause us problems but seem a part of who we are. Examples would be having a quick temper, being a heavy drinker, being a generally dependent and depressed person, being a "doormat". Even though we can be pretty sure we want to change, it can seem like maybe more might be lost besides problems. Questions arise like, "how will I deal with things?" "how will others relate to me?" "how will I relate to others?" "how will I deal with life?" "who will I be?" Overcoming this obsticle takes dealing with the fears. As with the issue above, it can be helpful to imagine yourself changed and imagine who you will be. You can talk about your fears with friends and, if that doesn't help enough, you can work your fears through with a counselor or therapist. It also helps to give yourself permission to change slowly so you can "digest" and get used to changes slowly. fear of the enormity of the work Sometimes it seems changes may take too much work. Like shoveling a mountain out of your back yard one shovel-ful at a time. It can be like it would be if your house was a total mess and it seemed you hadn't cleaned for months and you feel it would be easier to move. But the solution is to just take on the task with an acceptance that any little piece done is a step in the right direction and worthy of celebration. Like with the messy house, you pick a room or part of a room and begin to clean up. With big changes in who one is, you break large tasks into little tasks. fear of easy change Ironically, if you've been dealing with a bad habit or counterproductive tendency for a long time and it has been causing all sorts of problems for a long time, if you go to a counselor and he or she tells you there is an easy fix -- or if you simply come to the realization that there may be an easy fix to your problems -- you will find yourself resisting change to the degree to which changing seems like it will make you feel guilty or badly about having not changed before. Getting past this issue often takes a lot of talking with loved ones or with a counselor. fear of getting stuck half-way Sometimes what we want to change in ourselves is actually a coping strategy that works but that has negative side-effects or negative consequences down the line. Dealing with grief via alcohol or drugs, dealing with anxiety via anger or dependency, dealing with fear about the dangers in life by staying at home and refusing to go out, etc., are good examples of the millions of ways a coping strategy can have inadequate efficacy or problematic secondary side-effects. One very good reason to resist giving up an inadequate coping strategy that is causing problems is because there is a fear that there might not be any coping strategy at all to deal with life's terror, depression and upsets. This would be like giving up a jacket because it isn't warm enough for winter -- without owning a coat. The answer to this dilemma is, of course, get a coat before you give up your jacket. Work on other coping strategies -- either by yourself or with a therapist. The extreme of this problem comes up frequently in my private practice. Marginally suicidal people tell me they don't want to give up the possibility of killing themselves if things don't get better. They tell me that they aren't quite suicidal but that they don't want to work on ways to feel better because they feel they'll only accomplish a little of feeling better. They have no faith in themselves or in their ability to heal and they're almost able to kill themselves and don't want to feel a little better and then find that then they are unable to commit suicide. They more or less say that they don't want to distance themselves (by feeling any better) from feeling able to kill themselves without a promise that they won't be stuck feeling terrible but definitely NOT able to kill themselves. As crazy as this sounds, it has a solid logic from the perspective of someone who feels life has been primarily hostile, negative and hopeless. Getting past this often takes a little good luck and a good therapist. fear of losing secondary gains This is a little like fearing getting half-way better (above). Sometimes the thought of changing some bad habit or coping strategy causes fear about losing secondary gains. It can seem that getting better on the one hand will make things worse on the other. Depressed or anxious individuals get a lot of attention and assistance sometimes that they fear they'll have to give up if they get a little better. Individuals with very poor self-esteem may feel that if they start to be more confident or more successful, people will start expecting too much from them. Before someone who wants to give up a fun but counterproductive coping strategy or behavior (e.g., a person who decides he or she must give up drugs or promiscuous sexual relationships (because of a growing understanding that these are life threatening and that most of these work out very badly in the long run), he or she has to come to grips that the price tag for giving up the problems is that there will be no more of the fun parts of these experiences. If a child who has fears of thunder storms gets to sleep with mom and dad, overcoming fears may mean lonely nights. The basic issue is this: No one ever develops a tendency or bad habit that isn't to some extent rewarding. To change bad habits, the price tag is rubbing your own nose in the negative consequences and recognizing you have to lose the benefits. If you get stuck on changes because of this issue, you may need help. If you're trying to change a child's behaviors or tendencies and you can't seem to find a way to unstick the child because of secondary gains, get help. fear of betting hope against change and losing hope Sometimes a bad habit or tendency can cause problems for a long time, during which a person can start telling him- or herself that it can probably be dealt with while another little voice in the head says maybe it can't. A person can get sort of comfortable with always telling him- or herself that the problem can be dealt with but then never gets around to actually working on change because of a fear that the problem actually can't be changed. This means that if he or she actually is in the position to try to change the problem behavior or tendency, before a real effort can be made he or she has to face the possibility that trying to change will put at risk the little bit of solace that came from hoping. (In other words, if he or she really tries to change and fails, it will be a great deal more difficult to keep the little bit of hope for change he or she had.) As with other issues that might cause resistance to change, if you can't get past this you need some help. fear of the responsibility of changes Sometimes the idea of change carries with it an implication to the changee that there may be pressures from others to change other things or to be more responsible or able in the future -- if the target change is successful. They feel that having bad habits or negative tendencies -- and appearing hopeless in changing them -- somehow insulates them from other expectations that might otherwise be made on them. Though this can, at first blush, seem silly, this is a reasonable fear. The fact is in life that if you do something well, people will expect you to do it a lot and will expect other feats of excellence. This is an especially important issue for people who have felt dysfunctional for much of their lives, which is often the case for survivors of childhood abuse or other dysfunctions and traumas of childhood. These folks are often out of touch with what they think "normal" individuals can expect from themselves or others -- often feeling they themselves are very dysfunctional and others live flawless lives. They often think that if they get one thing right, everyone will expect them to be perfect. The way around this is to develop some reasonable expectations of one's self and some reasonable responses to others that may imply that they expect more if they see a success or two. Sometimes this amounts to one or two "public relations statements" (e.g., "Look, nobody's perfect. I need to change one thing at a time."). Sometimes this requires the help of a therapist.
fear of happiness and self-esteem #1 Some people try to balance their lives between good and bad. They quite consciously fear happiness and self-esteem and any changes that might lead to either because they were actually raised by people who also felt that happiness and self-esteem were basically very bad luck. (In my experience this seems often associated with growing up in the harsher, colder Midwest peopled by people with roots in northern Europe like Norway.) To these folks changes that may threaten happiness. Self-esteem can seem dangerous. What the danger is is less apparent than that there is a feeling of anxiousness that there is danger. Such a person might try hard not to feel bad but also try hard not to feel happy. They try not to have a bad opinion of themselves but they also try not to have any self esteem. Happiness leads to mistakes and is bad luck. Having good self esteem is being conceited. This can result in an internal struggle that translates to some significant resistance to change for some folks. Getting past it takes first recognizing that it is an attitude in play and deciding whether or not you really want to change. Getting it out of the way may be something you can do yourself or may require some working with a counselor. fear of happiness and self-esteem #2 Sometimes people can become so sensitized to the experience of failure that they try to avoid failure in basically the only way there is -- never try to change or try anything new, no matter how badly they feel, without feeling a great deal of stress and tension. The underlying problem is that they're betting it is much more likely that they're going to fail than succeed and the possibility of success just doesn't warrant trying. Often this is described as a poor self-esteem that amounts to feeling that one is a hopeless failure, destined to fail. From this perspective, it makes sense to play it safe and be opposed to trying to be successful or happy. (The error in the logic is that it is based on the initial assumption about the likelihood of failure. This is because the individual is grossly underestimating his or her failure to success ratio. Because there are actually thousands, hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of decisions made every day by every living creature -- most of them routine but all of them warranting a credit for having gone right because if any one of those routine decisions had been made badly there would be stumbling, bumbling and injury. No one can keep breathing for more than a few hours without most decisions being made adequately.) Often, though not always, these folks have been through awful childhoods and have had their sense of emotional and social direction jumbled up and ideas of self-maintenance, love and abuse, and right and wrong all tangled. These folks will tend to verbalize to themselves and others that basically they believe that any good time will go bad sooner or later. It usually doesn't seem to be helpful to point out the other side of the coin -- that every bad time sooner or later gives way to good because from their perspective, their experience in life indicates differently. As a strategy in life, rather than watching for the elements that lead to bad times and trying to make them happen less often and for shorter periods, these folks actually approach life being vigilant for good times and try to curtail them. This happens consciously, unconsciously and may come in any size tendency from obsession to little anxiousness. This sounds a little complicated and it is -- it's interwoven with self-anger, a sense of being a major screw up, very poor self image, etc. In it's stronger versions, this is usually a problem that is going to take some artful counseling. fear of letting someone else off the hook Sometimes the issue holding back change is that the thing to change (the tendency, attitude, behavior, whatever) seems to be a reaction or a coping strategy or something that came in response to being hurt by someone else. An example of this would be, say something like a facial tic and anxiety that happens after being in a near death car wreck -- the car being driven by a family member that will not take responsibility for driving carefully. A person just might naturally have a facial tic or something equivalent after such an experience. And that person might be able to work with a counselor to get rid of the tic and the anxiety - and want to be rid of them -- but still might not want to because it might be believed that the tic and anxiety were important to maintain because the family member might then think it was no big deal to have been driving recklessly. Or, another example might be a childhood abuse survivor who experienced years of chaotic reactions before finally being able to settle down and focus more on the strengths than the weaknesses. Such an individual might feel it would let his or her abuser "off the hook" if life straightened out and started being more successful. This sort of resistance can also be sometimes seen in divided parents who feel like it exonerates the other spouse's negative behavior if the kids emotionally adjust to divorce. This is not necessarily because of any sort of inappropriate self-indulgence. It can merely seem dangerous on some conscious or unconscious level of thinking. Things going well -- when you're pretty convinced they are dangerous and threatening -- can seem like life is trying to lull one's defenses into a false sense of security. When our senses tell us something is dangerous we must at least evaluate the situation with that warning in mind. self-directed anger, not deserving of change As strange as it may sound to others, some people harbor a fairly strong attitude about not deserving of having things go better. This, as one might imagine, can make the prospect of self-improvement difficult to be motivated for and perhaps somewhat anxious about. unrealistic expectations Unrealistically high expectations aren't really resistance to change, but they are often mistaken for resistance. To have unrealistic expectations is to have a a focus on an impossible change or set of changes. This can (duh) result in a lot of wasted energy and can certainly fuel a sense of failure without much trouble. This would be reality resisting change. Unrealistically low expectations may be a consequence of resistance to change or may be resistance to change itself. It can seem logical to have very low expectations so that there will be less failure experiences. However, if the lowered expectations are really obvious to the individual, it can seem like a sort of cowardice (to self or others). environmental triggers Environmental triggers aren't really resistance to change but can be contributors to relapse and thus can be mistaken as resistance to change. This is when the individual really doesn't resist but relapses because of environmental triggers that are underestimated. social "supports" and pressures For some people, not only are their possible internal reasons for resisting change -- there are also possible external forces that are resistant to their changing. Social supports and pressures for some people can in many cases add up to serious support and help. But for some folks they also contend with external, social forces in the form of family members and friends that want but resist their loved one's changing. This can be for blatantly self-serving reasons or simply impractical reactions from others. Imagine, for example, the smoker whose efforts at quitting is again and again sabotaged by a smoking spouse. Or an alcoholic's spouse that feels it would be easier for the drinking to return than deal with the unknown. Or a mother that is worried about overnights away from home not really helping her son to stop wetting the bed at night. There are a million reasons for fearing and resisting while also wanting someone to change. fear of losing friends and family Some changes threaten to bring changes in friendship and family systems. This may be because of at least a couple of things. For an alcoholic or smoker or dieter, there may be friends they need to avoid to stay healthy. Or, for some people, whole families or friendship systems may have rules or guidelines that are toxic and cause problems. For these folks, getting sane may seem becoming crazy to family or friends. old habits die hard Old habits die hard. That's life. That's a fact of life that spells resistance to change. Incumbant politicians win elections for their office easier than challengers. A body in motion tends to stay in motion. A body at rest tends to stay at rest. A burglarized apartment is more likely to be burglarized again. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Though they may be the underlying cause of all sorts of negative consequences, there is a tendency for old, well-used, well-practiced behaviors to slip back into play as soon as one decides that a change is in place and can be taken for granted. This isn't really a person's resistance to change -- it's just life's resistance to change. What it means is that if you get a change to happen in how you do things or think about things, it will reverse itself when you're least likely to notice it and you'll be back to your old ways. Thus, the corresponding fact of life is that you need to get the change back into place as soon as possible, as soon as you notice. You need to keep doing this until the new changed behavior is actually a well-practiced, well-used behavior itself. New, improved well-practiced behaviors out-weigh old, unhelpful well-practiced behaviors, so you don't have to have the new behavior in place for as long as the old one was in place before relapsing slows way down. Its probably best to assume you'll relapse back to old ways less and less often but you'll probably never see the day that you're sure you won't ever slip up and go back to old ways again. This is just the way animal life is. People seem to complain about this little fact of life -- it may seem unfair or stupid, but it is what is. the baloney from another planet
Self-directed hostility is a viscious cycle -type problem that can sustain itself for months, years or decades.. the requirement of mourning, absorption and self-pity (-- or, the daze of mourning dawning) This refers to a resistance to change that is often exhibited by people when they decide (or Life decides for them for one reason or another -- wanted or unwanted, on purpose or by accident) that they need to remember and rethink traumas of the past. This is mostly true when a person finds him- or herself more or less involuntarily embarking on a detailed remembering and rethinking about the nitty-gritty and often gross details of a generally abusive childhood or one or more traumatic experiences that were thought to have been put to rest and buried deep in mental storage. To people observing, it looks like the person actually wants to feel bad and this seems baffling to the extreme. This usually seems to happen when there is a sudden onset of re-evaluating long-ago put-away memories of trauma -- usually because one or more unforeseen circumstances seem to unexpectedly force sudden close, conscious attention to them. This may happen, for example, to a woman who was molested and who is told she is pregnant and starts to think about how she will make sure her child is not hurt like she was. Or it may happen to a woman with a molestation background when a daughter or son reaches the age at which she was molested. Or it may happen to a dad with a trauma history who comes to a family therapist because of parenting problems and it is noted that his parenting style reflects sensitivities related to his abuse. Or it can happen to a survivor of abuse when his or her mother dies or when his or her abuser dies. Or it can happen after as little as watching an emotionally powerful movie that touches on past issues. The bottom line is that for some reason or another, suddenly a fairly well-rounded, well-functioning life takes a sharp turn into anxiety and terrorizing, unwanted memories. This is often accompanied by difficulty being around people, trouble with memory and concentration, profound feelings of depression and fearfulness, flashbacks of trauma experiences and nightmares of terror, death, pain and/or destruction. The individual experiencing all this basically feels like he or she has gone completely crazy in the most painful, scary way possible. And the bottom line, with respect to resistance to change and treatment, is that once this can of worms is opened and though the individual feels he or she is drowning in these worms, he or she may also find that it is -- AT LEAST FOR A TIME -- very difficult to get any relief from the constant bombardment of crazy feelings and experiences because it really feels like there is a need to stay immersed and more or less "wallow" in the pain. This doesn't happen to everyone and it isn't necessary that it be a permanent thing but it amounts to at least a requirement of mourning for a period of weeks, months or for some, years, during which it just seems that mourning and wallowing in hurt is important. Perhaps this is because a person needs to let him- or herself really feel the hurt, now that he or she is older and more mature. Perhaps this is because a person needs to sort of "pay homage" to the hurt and fear that was experienced as a child. Perhaps it is just the mind refusing to forget the hurt again until there is better understanding of what happened. Sometimes the mind doesn't seem able to let itself let go of memories until a perspective can be found that lets things be remembered and lets lessons be appreciated about dangers, ability to survive and protection. Sometimes this is just a requirement of a certain amount of abject mourning -- a requirement that just is and isn't optional -- that dictates that a person must more or less absorb themselves in all the feelings and memories in order to re-catalogue, re-evaluate and re-learn what they can. Sometimes this amounts simply to a need for a certain amount of profound self-pity that is needed to begin a forgiving of self and an appreciation of strengths long ignored. (Self-pity is okay -- just as they say charity begins at home, so does pity.) Sometimes this can be very tenacious and sustained for years before the individual finally feels they can let themselves heal. For some this is so important and can be very tough to get beyond, even with the help of a counselor. In the best of circumstances and with a good counselor and some good luck, some folks seem stuck in this stuff -- in this resistance to change until there has been enough mourning or acknowledgment of pain -- for no more than a few weeks or a month or two. the fear of letting loose, running amuck
This can be a very subtle problem and may be a big deal or a little. In it's toughest form it may need counselor help but in it's mild form it may just take self awareness of this as a silly idea to get past.
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