Repetition Compulsion

One of the most striking paradoxes of human psychology is that people often recreate experiences that cause them suffering. They repeatedly choose partners who reject them, become involved in relationships that end in the same painful way, find themselves in recurring interpersonal conflicts, or encounter remarkably similar emotional dead ends throughout their lives. Although they consciously wish to change, they unconsciously seem drawn toward what is familiar—even when that familiarity is associated with distress.