Secondary Gains, Primary Losses

A man walks into a doctor’s office.

“Doc, I have a problem. I think I’m a chicken.”

The doctor replies, “Well, that’s certainly a problem. But I think I can help.”

The man hesitates.

“See, the thing is…my wife needs the eggs.”

There’s something wonderfully ridiculous about this joke, but it illustrates a psychological phenomenon called secondary gain.

A secondary gain is a benefit someone receives from a problem or behavior that otherwise causes them difficulty.

The man wants help with his chicken problem. Presumably, thinking he’s a chicken creates some fairly significant limitations in his life. Job interviews, for example, could be challenging.

But being a chicken also gives him something: a way of being useful to his wife.

And perhaps, conveniently, a reason not to pursue those job interviews.

The difficulty is that solving the problem might mean giving up something the problem has been providing.

That’s where things get interesting.

When the Solution Becomes Part of the Problem

We tend to think of self-defeating behavior as something obviously unproductive.

Procrastination. Avoidance. Making excuses. Repeating the same mistakes.

But sometimes the behavior that keeps us stuck looks remarkably productive.

We work harder. We make plans. We organize things. We take on projects.

We may even be doing something genuinely worthwhile.

The trouble is that what we’re doing can also help us avoid something else.

Consider someone who wants to change careers but spends months researching possibilities without ever applying for a job.

The research may be useful. They may genuinely be learning something.

But as long as they’re researching, they don’t have to risk rejection.

Or someone who wants a closer relationship but stays so busy taking care of everyone else’s practical needs that there’s little opportunity for emotional intimacy.

They may be extraordinarily helpful.

They may also be avoiding something.

Sometimes what we do to solve a problem also helps us avoid confronting it.

And because the behavior has a legitimate purpose, it can be particularly difficult to recognize what else it accomplishes.

What’s the Function That It Serves?

James Orlando, a friend of mine who’s also a therapist, has a question he often asks clients:

“What’s the function that it serves?”

I’ve always liked the question, although I find it considerably less charming when he turns it on me.

It asks us to look beyond whether a behavior is good or bad, productive or unproductive, reasonable or unreasonable.

Instead, we’re asking what the behavior actually does for us.

What does it accomplish?

What does it help us manage?

What might we have to experience if we stopped doing it?

And perhaps most importantly, is what we’re getting from the behavior worth what it’s costing us?

A Father Who Wanted to Be Closer to His Children

Consider a widowed father who wants to feel closer to his children.

Since his wife’s death, he’s been trying to make their house a more comfortable and welcoming home for the three of them.

But despite his efforts, he feels increasingly disconnected from his kids.

The house is a disaster.

He’s been remodeling extensively, with eight to ten projects going at once.

The upstairs bathroom is unusable because he’s taken the sink apart. The living room is being painted. Other rooms are in various stages of disassembly.

He’s busy.

Very busy.

And he’s doing all this, he explains, to make the house a better home for his children.

But much of the time he might otherwise spend with them is being consumed by work on the house.

When asked what he imagines he’d be doing with his children if there weren’t so many projects, his answer seems obvious.

“Well, I’d spend more time with them.”

But what would that look like?

He pauses.

He’s not really sure.

When his children play together, he often feels disconnected. He doesn’t know how to join in. Sometimes he worries that they have the same difficulties connecting with other people that he’s experienced himself.

Finally, he admits something that may be considerably more difficult than any of the renovations.

“I don’t know how to do family.”

And there it is.

The Projects Weren’t the Problem. Or Were They?

The father genuinely wants to improve his home.

He cares about his children. He wants them to have a comfortable place to live. And he enjoys working on projects.

There may be something else as well. Since his wife’s death, working on the house may provide a sense of continuity and purpose at a time when much of his life feels uncertain.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of that.

But the projects may also provide something else.

They give him a way to feel like he’s being a good father without having to confront how uncertain he feels about actually being with his children.

He can work on the house.

He can point to progress.

He can tell himself that once everything is finished, he’ll have more time to connect with them.

Unfortunately, there’s always another project.

And the very thing he’s doing to create a better family life may also be helping him postpone participating in one.

That’s the secondary gain.

Not that he secretly wants to avoid his children.

Not that his efforts are insincere.

But that the projects allow him to avoid experiencing something uncomfortable while still feeling that he’s working toward something important.

The question is whether he can tolerate some of that discomfort long enough to begin having the relationship he wants.

Sometimes You Have to Do Less to Get More

What might happen if he set aside some time when the projects could wait and his children could have his attention?

Not necessarily doing anything impressive.

Not trying to manufacture a perfect family experience.

Just participating.

He might feel awkward. His children might not respond the way he hopes. There might be moments when he has no idea what to do.

Those moments wouldn’t be evidence that he can’t connect with his children.

They’d be part of learning how.

And instead of measuring his success by how much he’s accomplished around the house, he could begin noticing the smaller experiences of connection that might otherwise go overlooked.

A conversation.

A shared activity.

A few minutes when everyone is simply enjoying themselves.

He doesn’t have to stop being someone who likes projects.

He needs to make sure the projects aren’t taking the place of something he wants more.

Not All Avoidance Is Bad

There’s an important distinction here.

Not every behavior that helps us avoid discomfort is unhealthy.

Sometimes distraction is exactly what we need.

For this father, working on the house may also be a way of managing grief.

Perhaps the projects give his days structure. Perhaps caring for the home helps him preserve a sense of connection with his wife. Perhaps they provide something manageable to do when much of life feels unmanageable.

That doesn’t automatically make the behavior pathological.

People don’t necessarily benefit from confronting every painful feeling immediately, all at once.

Sometimes we approach difficult experiences gradually.

The question is whether the behavior helps us manage something until we’re better able to face it—or whether it becomes a way of never having to face it at all.

And we may not know the answer right away.

What Are You Getting Out of It?

One of the difficulties with secondary gains is that the benefits can be immediate while the costs accumulate gradually.

Avoiding a difficult conversation brings immediate relief.

But the relationship remains strained.

Putting off a challenging task allows us to escape the possibility of failure.

But the task remains undone.

Staying angry with someone may help us avoid feeling vulnerable or powerless.

But the anger can also keep us psychologically connected to the person we’re trying to move beyond.

The behavior works.

Just not necessarily in the way we’d ultimately like our lives to work.

And that’s why I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to treat secondary gains as evidence of laziness, weakness, or some elaborate scheme to sabotage ourselves.

Often we’re simply using a familiar way of managing discomfort.

The trouble begins when the way we manage the discomfort becomes more costly than experiencing it.

Ask Yourself What the Behavior Is Doing

If you find yourself repeatedly doing something that interferes with what you say you want, it may be worth asking a few questions.

What am I trying to accomplish?

What do I keep doing instead?

What does that behavior give me right now?

What might I have to feel, risk, or confront if I stopped doing it?

And what would I need to begin doing differently to move toward what I actually want?

You don’t necessarily have to eliminate the behavior.

The father doesn’t need to give up renovating his house.

He needs to recognize that the renovations may be serving several purposes, and decide whether they’re taking time and energy away from something he wants more.

Sometimes the most useful question isn’t whether something we’re doing is good or bad.

It’s whether it’s helping us get where we want to go.

Because the problem with secondary gains isn’t that we get something out of our problems.

It’s what we may be giving up in order to keep getting it.