Why does this keep happening to me?

Have any of you noticed some recurring patterns in your life? For example, you leave a relationship with someone who is emotionally distant, then later find yourself drawn to someone who seems warm at first, but soon turns out to be just as unavailable. It feels different at the start, but the dynamic ends up the same.

Or you tend to sabotage good things in your life because they feel unfamiliar: you meet someone who treats you well, shows up consistently, and is reliable. However, instead of relaxing, you feel uneasy, even suspicious, and you may even pull away.

Or do you blame yourself automatically and continuously apologise, over-explain, and try to keep the peace, even when you are not at fault?

Why do we repeat what hurts us?

It can help to imagine that we grow up building an inner "blueprint" for how relationships work. This "blueprint" forms in childhood and is shaped by the emotional atmosphere in the family home, the way our parents responded to us, and what we had to do to feel safe, seen, or accepted. Those experiences form our emotional "map," which guides behaviour automatically.

From a psychoanalytic point of view, this reliance on old patterns of behaviour isn't a weakness. It's a survival strategy that once made sense. It's almost as if we are repeatedly revisiting our earlier emotional experiences, hoping that this time the story will have a different outcome.

Imagine someone who grew up in a home where love felt unpredictable: the parent was caring one moment and distant or irritated the next. As a child, this person learned to stay alert, to work hard for attention, and to accept that closeness often came with tension or uncertainty. As an adult, they meet two potential partners:

Person A is steady, kind, and emotionally available. They show interest consistently.

Person B is warm sometimes, distant other times, and their attention feels like something you have to earn.

Even though Person A is actually better for them, the person might feel "not drawn" to them. Person B feels strangely exciting and familiar because their inconsistency matches the emotional rhythm with which they grew up.

So they choose Person B, believing it's a free choice. But in reality, their nervous system is simply choosing what is familiar, even if it leads to the same kind of hurt or anxiety they experienced as a child.

How psychodynamic therapy helps us notice these patterns

The therapy room can become a safe version of the real world, a place where you interact with me in ways that often reflect how you interact outside of therapy. Because the environment is supportive and focused on understanding rather than judgment, your habits, expectations, and emotional reactions emerge naturally. When they do, we can examine them together and understand their origins and how they impact your life.

Over time, you will notice how past experiences shape your current choices. This realisation can help you make sense of old emotional wounds without blaming yourself or others. For example, someone notices that they pull away whenever a friend gets too emotionally close. They have always thought, "I'm just not good at relationships."

Over time, they realise this reaction comes from growing up in a home where showing feelings led to being teased. Seeing this pattern helps them understand their reactions without blaming anyone. And as they start to notice when they are pulling away, they are already beginning to change it. The change is gradual, and it will start with small shifts, such as saying no, setting boundaries and choosing different partners.

Many harmful habits (overworking, people-pleasing, shutting down, snapping in anger, avoiding conflict) began as ways to cope. For example, a person who overeats when stressed learns it's not "a lack of willpower" but a way to numb loneliness. From a psychoanalytic perspective, a person might reach for food when they feel stressed or lonely because, earlier in life, when they were upset, no one comforted them; when they were lonely, no one took notice. So the body learned its own way to cope: eating became a quick, guaranteed source of comfort and warmth. In therapy, the Person begins to see that the need to eat isn't a "bad habit" or "weakness." It's their younger self trying to say, "I need comfort. I need someone with me."

By talking openly about feelings of loneliness, fear, and the need for closeness in therapy, they are no longer facing them alone. Over time, as the more profound loneliness is acknowledged and soothed in the therapeutic relationship, the pressure to numb it with food reduces.

As these insights emerge, it’s important to remember that this work is not about blaming parents or assigning fault. Most parents did the best they could with the stresses and histories they carried themselves. What we explore in therapy is not who is to blame, but what happened, how it shaped you, and what you need now. It’s about giving yourself compassion so you can finally step out of patterns that were shaped long before you had any choice in them.