why are people self destructive?

[newbby]

why?

and how can we solve this problem?

[Pyro]

Because they don't know any better or they just don't care. You need to be more specific. Examples would be nice.

[newbby]

and you call yourself the riddler!

i mean all people, apart from maybe the most enlightened.

[Outcast]

People develop coping strategies that work in the short-term but not long-term. So, for instance, someone will eat the cheesecake because it makes her feel good right now and because she needs to feel good right now.

 

We are animals - rationality was the last cognitive function to develop. In times of stress, we revert to the pre-rational cognitive states. So the rationality needed for us to say 'I shouldn't eat that cheesecake because it will be bad for me' is the last visitor to the pity party and doesn't get much heed.

 

The deeper one's issues (i.e. stress creators), the less likely one is, I suspect, to be able to engage rationality to deal with situations.

 

The answers still needed to complete this theory is why something that doesn't read as a stress creator to one person does to another. What happened to make one person feel insecure in a situation and another not so?

 

This is a very big issue boiled down to a few sentences; of course there's a lot more complexity behind it all. If you really want to delve into human behaviour, google 'Psychological Self-Help'. It's an entire self-help manual online. Best thing about it, IMHO, is that the author includes all the various theories about why people behave a certain way as well as a list of therapies which could be tried to deal with whatever situation you're researching.

[newbby]

that answers why people dont think ahead but being self destructive is alot more than that, it is actively seeking punishments aswell as being destructive to others, which is self destructive because we are all connected, as well as being destructive to our planet which is also connected. i dont like psychology as a subject, how can the mind fix the mind? how can something even more complex fix something complex? doesnt real compassion and wisdom come from the soul, and not the mind or the emotions?

[Outcast]

i dont like psychology as a subject, how can the mind fix the mind? how can something even more complex fix something complex? doesnt real compassion and wisdom come from the soul, and not the mind or the emotions?

 

Psychology is about understanding. Understanding is the foundation of compassion.

[newbby]

i think understanding comes naturally with inner peace

[Outcast]

I think inner peace can come through understanding

[Mz. Pixie]

Alot of times the way people are raised in their childhoods make them want to self destruct.

 

For instance, you're told you're no good all your life, that no one will ever love you and then deep down you don't know you're doing it but you will push people away.

 

When you've been hurt- it's easy as well to want to cover up the pain with drugs or alcohol. I wonder just how many women who have been sexually abused are drug addicts and alcoholics?? The numbers are probably astounding. They do whatever they can to forget, if only for an hour or two.

 

I guess it all boils down to loving yourself.

[newbby]

it all boils down to not dwelling in the mind alone.

[Outcast]

it all boils down to not dwelling in the mind alone.

 

I don't think many people dwell in the mind. I think they avoid it like the plague. It's one's subconscious that often governs self-destructive actions. Until you delve deeply into your mind, you don't understand why you do what you do - and therefore may end up doing it forever.

 

The insecure person isn't going to get better until she figures out what made her insecure and does battle with the cause.

[newbby]

i disagree. when you meditate you can observe the incessant chattering of the mind and you notice sometimes that it is repeating negative things you feel about yourself, yes without you realising it until you are in that state of being, i suppose that is subconcious because it is not in your awareness. when you observe your mind during meditation you see these things anyway, much more clearly than when you analyse it. the mind keeps the ego alive and the id alive, until you realise that the mind is not really you.

IMO