Seeking Pleasure or Confirming Shame?

Why compulsive behaviour may be less about seeking pleasure and more about confirming the painful beliefs we carry about ourselves.

We often assume that people return to compulsive behaviours because they enjoy them. They are seeking pleasure, sexual relief, excitement, or escape. And sometimes, that is certainly part of the story.

But what if there is something deeper at work?

In his work with people struggling with compulsive sexual behaviour, therapist Jay Stringer has explored a difficult possibility: sometimes, what appears to be a pursuit of pleasure may also be an attempt to confirm a deep-seated belief that we are fundamentally flawed.

It is a challenging thought. Yet it may help us understand why someone can repeatedly engage in behaviour that threatens their relationships, damages their reputation, and leaves them feeling worse than before. Why would a person continue doing something that seems to work against everything they say they want?

Perhaps the answer is not always found in the pleasure they are seeking. Perhaps it lies in the shame they are trying to confirm.

1. When Failure Feels Familiar

There is a strange paradox in self-destructive behaviour: sometimes, the person seems to be moving toward the very outcome they claim to fear.

A man risks his marriage, career, and reputation through compulsive sexual behaviour. He knows the consequences. He has promised himself that he will stop. He may even have experienced the devastating aftermath many times before.

Yet he returns.

It can appear irrational. But consider this possibility: what if failure has become familiar? What if, deep within, he carries a belief that he is fundamentally flawed—and each episode of acting out becomes another piece of evidence supporting that belief?

The behaviour may not be consciously planned as self-sabotage. The person may genuinely desire freedom. But an unexamined belief about his own worth can quietly pull him toward the familiar.

There is a line from a song that captures this paradox: “To lose is what you’re really there for.”

A gambler may claim to be playing to win, yet repeatedly make choices that lead to loss. In a similar way, a person caught in compulsion may appear to be seeking pleasure while, at another level, moving toward the familiar confirmation of failure.

The question becomes:

What does this behaviour seem to prove about me?

2. The Effort to Kill Hope

Hope is beautiful. But when someone has lived for years under the weight of shame, hope can also feel frightening.

To hope for a better life is to risk disappointment. It means imagining that things could change, that relationships could be restored, and that freedom might be possible. If that hope has been disappointed repeatedly, the thought of hoping again can feel unbearable.

Sometimes, it may seem easier to give up.

A person returns to the same behaviour and tells himself:

“There. I knew I couldn’t change.”

The failure becomes evidence. The shame becomes familiar. And the possibility of healing is pushed further away.

In this way, compulsive behaviour can become an attempt to silence hope—not necessarily because the person wants to suffer, but because the uncertainty of change feels more frightening than the predictability of misery.

There is a tragic comfort in believing that nothing can change. If I am already beyond help, I no longer have to risk hoping.

But this is a lie that keeps a person imprisoned.

A setback does not prove that healing is impossible. It may reveal that there are wounds, needs, or patterns that still require attention. The fall is not the final truth about the person.

3. Shame May Be More Than the Aftermath

We often think of shame as something that comes after compulsive behaviour.

A person acts out. Then guilt and shame follow. He feels terrible, promises to stop, and tries again.

But what if shame is not only the consequence? What if, for some people, it is also part of the engine driving the cycle?

Early experiences can shape the way we understand ourselves. Bullying, rejection, neglect, abuse, or the absence of emotional care can leave a person carrying painful conclusions:

I am unwanted.

I am weak.

There is something wrong with me.

I do not deserve love.

These beliefs may remain hidden beneath the surface. A person can function well, build a career, care for a family, and appear confident while carrying a deep sense of self-contempt.

Compulsive behaviour may then become a way of reinforcing that inner story.

Each episode seems to say: “See? This is who I really am.”

The shame that follows can become like high-interest debt. Self-contempt accumulates, making the person feel increasingly unworthy of goodness. And the more unworthy he feels, the more likely he may be to return to the behaviour that confirms it.

The cycle becomes self-reinforcing.

This does not mean that every compulsive behaviour is driven by shame, or that every person who struggles has the same underlying wound. Human behaviour is complex. But for some, recognising shame as part of the pattern can open a door that sheer willpower has not been able to open.

4. When the Behaviour Reflects the Wound

Sometimes, the particular behaviour a person seeks can offer clues about the pain they carry.

This is a delicate subject, and it must be approached with great care. A person's interests or behaviour cannot, by themselves, tell us what happened to them. Nor should we assume that a particular pattern has one specific cause.

But in some therapeutic situations, the content a person compulsively seeks may reflect unresolved experiences of powerlessness, rejection, or self-contempt.

Stringer describes clinical experiences in which the material a person seeks appears connected to unresolved trauma and painful beliefs about themselves.

Consider a person who experienced abuse as a child. The abuse was not their fault. Yet a child may struggle to understand what happened and may wrongly conclude that they were somehow responsible.

Even bodily responses during abuse can become a source of confusion and shame. A survivor may interpret those responses as evidence of complicity, even though they do not mean consent or responsibility.

Years later, the person may find themselves drawn to material that echoes the powerlessness or violation they once experienced. The behaviour can become a disturbing way of giving shape to an inner belief that something is wrong with them.

This is not a reason to condemn the person. It is a reason to take their suffering seriously.

The behaviour may need to stop. Boundaries and accountability matter. But beneath those needs may be a wounded person who has been carrying a false burden of guilt.

Healing requires more than telling that person to try harder. It requires helping them understand that what happened to them was not their fault, and that their worth has never been defined by their wounds.

5. The Seesaw of Deprivation and Entitlement

Compulsive behaviour can also develop within a cycle of deprivation and entitlement.

On one side is strict self-denial.

The person feels unworthy of comfort, pleasure, affection, or rest. They impose harsh rules on themselves, believing that discipline and deprivation will keep them safe from failure.

But the pressure builds.

Eventually, the person swings to the other extreme:

“I deserve this. I’ve had a difficult day. I need something for myself.”

The behaviour follows. Then comes the aftermath: guilt, shame, self-hatred, and the conviction that they have failed again.

The person returns to strict deprivation, determined to become more disciplined.

And the seesaw begins again.

The problem is not that boundaries are unnecessary. Healthy boundaries are essential. The problem is when boundaries become a form of self-punishment, and when goodness itself begins to feel undeserved.

For someone accustomed to shame, receiving genuine kindness can feel strangely uncomfortable. Rest, affection, beauty, or simple pleasure may stir an inner conflict.

Part of the person longs to receive goodness. Another part insists that they do not deserve it.

The way forward is not to swing between indulgence and punishment. It is to learn how to receive what is genuinely good without using it as an escape or treating it as a reward that must be earned.

6. Learning to Feel Alive Again

Recovery is not simply about becoming better at resisting temptation. Nor is it about deadening our senses, despising our bodies, or punishing ourselves into submission.

It is about learning to live.

Stringer describes a simple sensory exercise involving the scent of fresh peppermint. In the context of recovery, such an experience can offer a small but meaningful reminder: the desire beneath the struggle may not be a desire for self-punishment. It may be a longing to feel fully alive.

Sometimes, the first step can be surprisingly simple: pause and notice something good.

The fresh scent of peppermint. The warmth of sunlight on your face. A walk outdoors. A conversation with someone who listens without rushing to judge. A moment of beauty that asks nothing of you.

These experiences may seem small. But they can remind us that our bodies are not enemies to be conquered. We are created for goodness, connection, and life.

The longing beneath compulsive behaviour may be distorted, but the human need for comfort, belonging, and love is not itself wrong.

The challenge is to stop asking something that cannot save us to carry the weight of our deepest needs.

For a Christian, this is where the invitation becomes profoundly spiritual.

God does not ask us to prove our worth through flawless performance. He invites us to receive His love, to bring our wounds into the light, and to allow His grace to reach the places we have hidden even from ourselves.

The Father does not wait for us to become lovable. He loves us in the very place where we have come to believe we are beyond love.

And healing begins, in part, when we dare to believe that goodness is not something we must earn through perfect behaviour.

It is something we are invited to receive.

From Self-Punishment to Freedom

If shame is part of what keeps a person trapped, then adding more shame will not set them free.

Accountability matters. Choices matter. The harm caused by compulsive behaviour must be acknowledged. But accountability without compassion can become another form of self-punishment.

The way toward freedom involves learning to tell the truth without condemning the person; to take responsibility without surrendering hope; and to recognise the wound without allowing it to define the whole story.

Perhaps the question is not only:

“How do I stop doing this?”

Perhaps we must also ask:

“What have I come to believe about myself—and what would it mean to receive the goodness I have convinced myself I do not deserve?”

The answer may take time. It may require therapy, spiritual direction, honest relationships, and the patient work of healing.

But the person is not beyond hope.

The shame may be deep. The cycle may be familiar. Yet neither is the final word.

You were not created for self-punishment. You were created for life.