Habits and Compulsions

A habit is practice which we feel an inner urge to carry out but which urges, If we resisted it repeatedly, would diminish after a time and disappear. To say that playing golf is a habit, or that gesticulating when one talks is a habit, is to say that by resisting the inclination toward the activity. We can’t rid ourselves of a compulsion simply by resisting it. Though we can sometimes reduce compulsive urges this way. They return to torment us. Months and sometime years, after we think we have defeated our compulsion by resisting it, we feel it suddenly welling up in us again, and we must battle as desperately as before if we are to resist it. If we manage to subdue the impulse successfully this time, we are likely to suffer from severe anxiety or from other serious symptoms.

Related Post