Why we keep doing things that don’t truly satisfy us

Repetition and why we repeat

Many people notice themselves repeating patterns, chasing experiences, or staying busy, even when nothing they are doing truly feels fulfilling. A person may act, speak, or react in ways that feel familiar, almost automatic, and wonder why they keep going over the same ground. However, there is often something being played out that hasn't yet been put into words, a part of one’s experience that is trying to be understood or remembered. In psychoanalytic terms, people often repeat to remember. It can be seen as a message or a signal, something the mind is trying to bring to our attention.

This is where psychoanalytic therapy comes in, where what is continuously being repeated can be put into words and symbolised. This movement from action to speech is important because it allows what is being played out in the background to be remembered instead of relived. When something can be remembered, spoken about and worked-through, it no longer has to carry the same weight in everyday life and most importantly it is no longer has to be endlessly repeated.

Enjoyment vs Desire

There is a difference between enjoyment and desire. Enjoyment is immediate. It can serve as a distraction and often feels like a solution in the moment. But it is fleeting. In my therapy practice, I often hear how this leads to an empty and flat feeling, a sense of feeling unfulfilled or dissatisfied. It can be seen in today's culture, there is endless choices, constant stimulation and everything appears as if it is unlimited.

Desire, in contrast, grows in absence, in ambiguity and in the gaps where something is not yet complete. Imagine a puzzle with a missing piece. The sense that something is incomplete drives you to engage, focus and imagine possibilities. If the puzzle were already finished the motivation vanishes. Desire works in the same way, the absence creates the pull, propelling you forward.

In psychoanalytic therapy, attention is paid to the small gaps in speech, the ambiguities, the hesitations, slips and moments where someone trails off mid-sentence or when they say something that surprises them articulating “I don't know why I said that.” These moments are often brushed past in everyday conversation, but here they are treated as meaningful. These are not mistakes, they are often where something new begins to take shape. For example, the person that keeps getting sick or starts articulating how they are ‘run down’ and stressed and then goes on to speak about how they are ‘sick’ of being ‘run down’ by others. Language and words can hold several meanings. This is why listening to the ambiguities and listening in the gaps produces meaningful work and movement.

Looking for Freedom in the Wrong Places

Many people speak about looking for freedom and usually this is followed by describing being able to make certain choices or decisions and being able to control circumstances or outcomes. This can create a surface level adjustment like rearranging furniture in a room, yet the room still stays the same. This freedom is not liberating and can create disorientation more than anything else. It keeps you stuck in a loop and imposes pressures of “I have to do this” or “I have to do that”. It is what creates an empty unsatisfied feeling. It's like running on a treadmill there's plenty of movement, you are constantly in motion while never reaching anywhere meaningful.

Psychoanalytic therapy offers a different kind of freedom. A freedom at the level of one’s position, how you show up in the world, have you relate to yourself and others. It's the freedom to shift the way you inhabit your own life, to notice how you show up in relationships, in work, and in your own thoughts and begin to respond from a place that isn't driven solely by habit, fear or repetition. It is a freedom in how you take up your place in the world. It's how you inhabit your life and respond to it, rather than simply exercising choices or decisions that feel like independence on the surface.

What Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Offers

In the psychotherapy sessions I offer in Dundalk, I work with people to explore the patterns, repetitions, and small gaps in their speech and experience. Through these gaps, something often begins to emerge, a spark of desire, a new way of understanding oneself, or a fresh perspective on familiar situations. Desire, in this sense, isn’t about getting more or achieving something, but about opening the space for creativity and new possibilities in how life is lived and experienced.

I often say that psychoanalytic work is less about simply enduring suffering and more about changing one’s relationship to it. By noticing patterns rather than being caught in them, and by allowing the small ambiguities and absences in life to be reflected on, a person can begin to move through life being more at ease with themselves and with others.

In this way, psychoanalytic therapy provides a different more profound form of freedom, a chance to inhabit life differently, and to discover ways of being that weren’t available before.

Getting in Touch

If you are looking for psychotherapy or counselling in Dundalk, or if you question why you keep doing things that don’t truly satisfy you, you are very welcome to get in touch to see if this work is a good fit for you.