At a glance
Repetition compulsion is the pull to reproduce an old relationship in place of remembering it. You choose a new person, and some months later the same feeling arrives with a different face in front of it. The pull works before you have an account of it, which is why understanding the pattern rarely ends it.
Clinical insights from 20+ years in psychotherapy
I’m Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist in Copenhagen. Qualified at the Psychosynthesis Education Trust and the University of East London. 20+ years in practice.
- The type is relational. The type you keep choosing is rarely a physical type.
- Chemistry or recognition. What gets described as chemistry is sometimes recognition of something familiar, and sometimes it is simply chemistry.
- Watch the start. The pattern my clients bring tends to weaken when they stop asking why they keep doing it and start watching what they actually do at the start of something.
Clinical notes: These observations are anonymous and compounded from session notes since 2004.
What is repetition compulsion?
Repetition compulsion is the unconscious drive to reproduce old experiences, relationships and feeling-states, particularly distressing ones, in place of simply remembering them. That is the definition the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute gives of Freud’s idea. Freud’s puzzle was plain: if the mind avoids pain, why return to it?
- The past as present. The old relationship is re-lived as though it were happening now, with the new person cast in it.
- No choice involved. You do not decide to repeat, and you do not want to suffer.
- Familiar reads as safe. What you already know registers as safe, and familiar is a different thing from good.
- An old problem. The choice is intelligent about a problem that is no longer in front of you.
Do people really choose the same kind of partner?
Yes, the pattern has been measured. Researchers compared how the past and current partners of 332 people described their own personalities.
- The partners resembled each other. A person’s current partner described themselves much as the past partner had.
- Beyond similarity to you. The resemblance held above and beyond the partners’ similarity to the person choosing them.
- So it is more than liking your own kind. Being drawn to people like yourself does not explain the result.
- The stated limit. The data do not make clear why it happens.
The people change, and the weather between you stays the same.
How does repetition compulsion show up in relationships?
It shows up as a partner who resembles somebody earlier, and then as the same arguments in a new home.
- The partner. You choose somebody who resembles a distant or unpredictable parent.
- The conflicts. You repeat arguments that mirror the old family dynamics, each of you in a part that was written long ago.
- The withdrawal. You pull back as the intimacy deepens.
- The certainty. It feels immediately right, and you say “I just knew”.
The pull towards the familiar is strongest before anybody has said anything real. Read more about why closeness itself feels risky.
Why does knowing my pattern not stop it?
Knowing does not stop it because the recognition arrives after the choice. The pull towards somebody familiar works long before you have any account of it. The analysis turns up months later, and by then you are explaining, and no longer deciding.
- Insight on its own. Plenty of people describe their pattern in detail and still live inside it.
- Blaming your parents. Where it came from matters less than what the pattern still does for you now, because that is the part you act on.
- Transference. The old pattern gets brought into the therapy room and acted out there, with somebody paying close attention while it happens.
- From repeating to remembering. The feeling gets attached to where it came from, and comes off the person currently in front of you.
The pattern needs somewhere to appear, which is why I do this work with a person and do not hand them a book. Read more about why you keep ruining good things.
How do I break repetition compulsion?
You break it at the start of something new, by watching what you do before you are attached to the answer. Time helps too. Across 628 Americans followed over decades, anxious attachment declined from young adulthood onwards, avoidance fell steadily, and the people in a relationship scored lower on both at every age.
- Slow the first month down. See the person less often than the pull tells you to.
- Write one sentence. When something feels immediately right, write down what exactly feels familiar, before you have an explanation for it.
- Treat “I just knew” as information. Certainty on the first evening tells you about your history.
- Tell recognition from compatibility. Recognition is instant and certain, and compatibility accumulates slowly and is fairly boring to describe.
- Watch, and stop asking why. Note what you actually do in the first weeks: what you overlook, what you offer, what you do not ask.
The study says the pattern is not fixed for life. It does not say which relationship, and that is the decision you are making.
These steps fail when the pull has already chosen before you start watching. That is what the session is for.
Questions people ask
Is repetition compulsion just having a type?
Partly, but a visible type is about looks. Repetition compulsion is about the emotional arrangement, which is why the pattern survives changing the looks entirely.
Does repetition compulsion always come from childhood?
No, any relationship strong enough to set an expectation does it, including an adult one that ended badly. Childhood gets named most often because it got there first.
Is it possible to break the pattern without therapy?
Sometimes, usually slowly, and usually because a relationship happened to provide the correction. Therapy is the version of that you arrange on purpose.
How do I tell recognition from compatibility?
Time tells you. Recognition is instant and certain, and compatibility accumulates.
What if the pattern only shows up once I am already in the relationship?
That is the usual case, and it is not too late. The choosing is only the first place the pattern appears, and the rest turns up in how the relationship is conducted.
You may also find these helpful
Sources
- University of Toronto, press release on Park, Y. and MacDonald, G., Consistency between individuals’ past and current romantic partners’ own reports of their personalities, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019
- Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute, “Repetition Compulsion: Why Freud Says We Repeat the Past”
- Chopik, W. J., Edelstein, R. S. and Grimm, K. J., Longitudinal changes in attachment orientation over a 59-year period, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2019
How this article was written. I choose the subject and the angle. An AI assistant researches and drafts. Nothing is published until I have read it, corrected it and stood behind every clinical statement in it. The professional and clinical judgement is mine and mine alone.
