Why People Do What They Do

Can you say, with any confidence, what drives the people around you? And do you imagine that therapists, psychiatrists, and counselors simply know the answer the moment a new client walks in and lays out the problem? Most of the time the opening account isn't enough. You need a bit more of the picture before the behavior starts to make sense. When I trained in behavior modification therapy, I followed the method exactly as it was written, and even then it almost always needed adjusting to actually work. The rewards and the consequences had to be things that genuinely moved a particular person toward doing, or stopping, whatever behavior we were targeting. One relative of mine couldn't care less about chocolate ice cream as an incentive. Offer the same person an hour to soak in a long bath, though, and suddenly there was leverage.

This gap between the obvious reason and the real one shows up well beyond behavior therapy. I once assumed I understood a farmer who reached for a drink whenever the forecast turned bad. My theory: he was frustrated at being kept out of his fields, anxious about getting crops planted or harvested on time. Wrong. What I eventually learned was simpler and stranger. A bad forecast meant he wouldn't be running any farm equipment the next day, which meant the evening was safely his to drink.

Another case stuck with me. I was using a hypnosis technique that had worked beautifully for other people trying to quit smoking, and with this client I was getting absolutely nowhere, despite the serious health damage the smoking was already causing. It wasn't until I sat down for a careful follow-up that the reason surfaced. Smoking was the one thing this person did purely for personal pleasure. Everything else was given over to other people, around the clock. The sheer volume of what this person handled for family and friends was hard to believe, always on call, always available. Take away the cigarette and you were taking away the single scrap of the day that belonged to them alone.

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