Have you ever met people who constantly complain about their lives, but at the same time do not change anything in it? Does this philosophy of life surprise you? You shouldn't be surprised. This approach to your life is called secondary benefit in psychology. A person, having stumbled once and realizing that one can benefit from suffering, will stumble again and again. Let's look at this syndrome in more detail.

Definition

What secondary benefit? A similar syndrome is a habit of a person to benefit from his misfortune. A person, finding himself in a difficult situation, for example, falling ill, can revel in his grief. A person will feel bad, but at the same time he will be surrounded by care and love. The person doesn't have to do anything. You can lie on the couch all day and watch your favorite TV shows. From the outside it will seem that the person is suffering. After all heat, constant droppers and injections will seem like hard labor. But the person will agree to endure such torture of his body, just to get the benefit that comes with feeling unwell. And it's not just the perpetually ill that benefit. Individuals who suffer from loneliness, live with a small salary or with a tyrant husband, also endure their deplorable situation for a reason. They enjoy the situation they are in. Such persons cannot be called masochists. After all, they derive significant benefits for themselves and consider relative inconveniences a small price to pay for all the other delights that life gives.

Emergence of profit

How does a secondary benefit arise? The idea that you can benefit from your grief comes to mind only to deeply unhappy or notorious people. A normal person will not dare to correct his condition in this way. Why does the unfortunate take a desperate step? He believes that he has nothing to lose, that the end will justify the means. For example, a single mother who is accustomed to living alone with a child may seem absolutely unhappy in appearance. Any sane person would advise a woman to find a worthy father for her child. But a woman will refuse such proposals and for the sake of appearance even go on dates from time to time. But soon the lady will understand that Government program funding for single mothers isn't that bad. A woman does not have to work hard, the state makes monthly contributions, which, although with difficulty, are enough to live on. A woman doesn't need a man. The lady is not sure that her new chosen one will be better than the old one. But after marrying a second time, a woman will lose all her privileges. Therefore, the lady does not even try to improve her personal life, why, if the woman is satisfied with everything.

Benefits from Fear

Cowardly people are not shy about admitting to themselves such a trait. What secondary benefit can there be from fear? A person who is terribly afraid of everything in the world can similarly cover up his laziness. For example, friends will offer a person to the sea. But after all, in order to go on vacation, you need to save up money, choose a hotel, book a hotel and think over an entertainment program. Or you can do nothing, hiding behind the fear of flying. A person can say that he is terrified of flying, and this will sound like a pretty decent excuse. No one can reproach him with fear, because few people can make out the real reason for the refusal behind the outer mask.

The secondary benefit of fear can work not only with flights, but with any other activity. For example, a person may be afraid of water. It’s not as embarrassing to tell others that you are afraid of water as to admit that you can’t swim. For some reason, in our society, it is customary to treat unconscious fears positively, but negatively to the absence of some skill.

Benefits of self-doubt

The secondary benefit in psychology always has some background and is rooted in some kind of human complex. Most often, the problems of all people are formed in childhood. That is where the answer is to be found. A person who suffers from low self-esteem and who does not want to change the situation in any way can be quite happy. It may seem doubtful to someone the happiness of a person who cannot show his character. But if you think about it, you can understand that he just does not want to take responsibility. After all, weak personalities never accept independent decisions and always ask for advice from friends or acquaintances. And then people act in accordance with the instructions received. Well, if the result of such an action is positive, but if he gets an unsatisfactory result of his activity, then a person will be able to shift the responsibility onto someone else. After all, he did not make the decision on his own, which means that the result of his activities will not fully lie on the shoulders of the offender.

Benefits of being a victim

Masochists enjoy pain, but victims of secondary gain are smart and calculating. They don't do reckless things. They are led by cold calculation. A woman who marries a tyrant knows her husband's potential. The girl more than once noticed the habits of the chosen one even before the wedding, and she perfectly understands what such personality traits will lead to in a relationship. Nevertheless, she agrees to marry the despot. It is impossible to call such a circumstance an ill-considered step. A person always knows what this or that act will lead him to. And when, over time, the woman's husband begins to show his despotic character, the girl begins to run around friends and complain about her lover. What is the lady's benefit? She receives warmth and care, which she could not find in marriage. And she is quite satisfied with the attention with which she is surrounded by close and sympathetic people. The woman does not want to change her position, because she is pleased to be in front of everyone and act as a victim.

Benefit from loneliness

Have you met men who consider their loneliness a curse? There are many such representatives of the strong half of humanity. What kind of people find secondary benefits of loneliness? A person who complains to others that he cannot find a normal girl is actually throwing dust in his eyes. A man enjoys a lonely life. He does not have to take care of anyone, and there is no need to share a roof over his head with someone. You can change girls every two weeks, and wild parties will help brighten up lonely evenings. A man feels great and just does not understand why he needs to change things. Yes, consciously the guy knows that he needs to start a family and children, but subconsciously the man has not yet grown up to his emotional maturity, when he is finally ready to take responsibility not only for his own, but also for someone else's life.

Benefits of low pay

Are there people in your environment who work for a penny, but do not want to change anything in their lives? What are these people waiting for? They like to complain about their boss and co-workers. And people of this temperament sincerely believe that it is simply impossible to find a better job. What is the secondary benefit of such a position? People do not need to change anything in their usual way. A person is in his comfort zone and does not want to leave it at all. The person is respected in their circles, she has friends and acquaintances. A person knows how and on what he will spend his current salary and what he will save money from the bonus for. And when he has the opportunity to earn more, he begins to experience a completely natural fear. Panic begins, how to spend a lot of money, what to save it for and where to invest. A person does not know how he will be accepted in a new team and how members of a more elite society will communicate with him. So whine about a better life the person will continue, but the current state of affairs will not change.

What follows from this?

After examining several situations, we can draw conclusions from the situation that gives a secondary benefit.

• You can get out of trouble. A person does not have to look for solutions to complex problems. You can always hide in your shell and wait for someone else to accept important decision or help you improve the current state of affairs. And sometimes you can just get rid of the problem by ignoring it.
• Secondary benefit gives a person the opportunity to feel loved and needed. If a person lacks the love of family and friends, then the person resorts to proven methods. For example, it starts to hurt. The conscience of close people wakes up, and they surround a family member with care and pay increased attention to a person.
• A person does not have to meet the high standards that others place on him. The surrounding people treat weak and timid persons with understanding and care. Therefore, they do not have to meet the standards of normal healthy people.

Solution

One technique for dealing with secondary gain is to find a situation that annoys you and ask yourself why you are still not changing things. Remember cause and effect relationships. Ask yourself how you benefit from a bad relationship, an illness, or a low paycheck. You need to answer honestly and without embellishment. Only an honest answer will help to find the true problem and normalize the situation. Once you have found your problem, you need to fix it. Do your best to get out of your comfort zone. It will be hard at first, but with due diligence, you will surely cope. And in order not to fall into a similar trap in the future, you should leave your comfort zone as often as possible, at least once a month.

Psychological work

Don't know how to get rid of the secondary benefit? NLP will help you with this. But it is necessary to conduct such sessions not at home, but with a specialist. Experienced psychotherapists will be able to relieve you of psychological problems and find the roots of your substituted reality.

Well, if there is neither time nor money to go to a specialist, how to get rid of the secondary benefit on your own? Once you have found the problem, you must deal with it step by step. You need to start with feeling your emotions. Consider if you are benefiting from suffering. If so, change the state of things and start getting negative emotions from negative things. Do not engage in self-deception, it will not help. Learn to enjoy common pleasures, well-being, the support of a loved one, and good material well-being.

In psychology, there is such a thing - secondary benefit. This is a hidden bonus that is received as a result of seemingly useless behavior. As an example of a secondary benefit, a person who is ill on purpose (sometimes secretly from himself) is often cited in order to get the attention and care of others that are attached to the disease.

Even more often, "profitable" helplessness is deliberately practiced in order to shift heavy responsibilities onto other people's shoulders. Trying to extract a secondary benefit, they pretend to be incapable and weak so that the demanding others fall behind, taking full responsibility for themselves.

In early childhood, the child intuitively feels what role to play in order to extract the desired benefits. But over the years, he gets used to this role - he takes his pretense for nature. For example, not wanting to strain his mind, he portrays an inability to understand, and over time he begins to believe himself that this is his real insurmountable weakness. Subsequently, already an adult, again and again, according to a long-standing habit, he closes himself from the need to turn on the thinker. As a result, indeed, both in the eyes of those around him and in his own, he becomes stupid and inhibited.

Often, the fear of disturbing one’s overestimated in real business, unwillingness to overcome difficulties and bear responsibility for one’s own passivity, is “profitably” covered up by an external impossibility - they say, this is such a country for initiatives that is inconvenient for us, society is unfair, or a tyrant spouse does not give a break.

Another good example I recently cited in an article - this is a person who is constantly “distracted” from supposedly desired sports loads, as if forcing him to sit in a soft spot against his will.

Do you already understand what really distracts him?

The real but unrecognized desire that drives behavior is the secondary benefit. Laziness, its visual manifestation, is a refusal to recognize your prevailing desire to do exactly what you do when you shirk from the affairs approved by your conscience.

And the top of the "hit parade" of popular aspirations, from which reason denies, is headed by feeling own importance. They cover it according to the situation, with anything - noble intentions, protection of truth and justice, health benefits - any pretext from which conscience will not choke. A banal example is a luxurious thing bought in words - for "business", but in reality - for show-off ..

True Desires

The secondary benefit, sagging in the unconscious, is therefore not recognized by a clear mind, which does not seem appropriate to it. And it may even seem vicious, since it is based on lies. Having been revealed to the mind, the secondary benefit would be subjected to the threat of an instant debunking, and therefore unconsciously covered up in order to continue secretly extracting.

No matter how many smart books about the benefits of self-knowledge are read, you won’t even take a century to look into your own insides, while secretly from yourself you want to continue to derive secondary benefits of self-deception. And it's completely natural.

No matter how picturesquely spiritual and highly moral qualities are described by preachers and teachers, they are not achievable as long as they contradict true desires - obvious and secondary benefits.

Secondary benefit is the very motive that guides when they do not understand the reason for their actions. In almost every situation, when it seems that one is acting contrary to desires, one can state self-deception, in which the true prevailing desire remains unrecognized.

Do you want to understand why you are stuck in an unpleasant situation? Recognize honestly the real advantages of your position. Find your secondary benefit.

Secondary benefit of emotions

In one of the articles I said that emotions are the power of desires. And desires, as you already know, can be suppressed into the unconscious and invisible to the mind. Therefore, emotions seem to be independent - like external elements, they occupy the mind, bypassing the conscious will.

Simply put, personal will, being unrecognized, begins to seem otherworldly. And a person can believe that he was captured by some insidious and evil spirit - his own denied desire. This is how the secondary benefit of emotions works, which at first glance may seem completely unprofitable and destructive. In this sense, they selflessly enjoy their suffering, not at all wanting to give it up.

For example, there is an absolutely selfish intention to impose guilt on the offender so that he, having repented, becomes comfortable.

The obsessive intention to establish one's own, sometimes completely groundless, authoritative superiority over the object of irritation is covered.

Behind lies the hope of getting a lover. To take and analyze one's hope, recognizing its possible futility, will seem to the lover a blasphemous betrayal of "holy" feelings. In the meantime, you languish and suffer, it seems like you continue to support the space of the future merging in love.

At the heart of self-pity is rooted the motive - to demonstrate the full depth of their torment, so that they are favorably covered with care. You can ecstatically burst into tears even in solitude, not noticing how you are already expecting an openly irrational reward. It is as if there is a special layer of the subtle plane, where all personal suffering is calculated by a higher power that pays for tears with a “fair” reward.

There are many examples. A significant part of the blog articles are replete with them.

Draw your own conclusions.

Seven deadly sins, or the psychology of vice [for believers and non-believers] Shcherbatykh Yuri Viktorovich

"Secondary Benefit"

"Secondary Benefit"

How happy are the pessimists! What joy they experience when it turns out that there is no joy!

M. Ebner-Eschenbach

It would seem that everyone understands that despondency is bad, that a discouraged person drags heavily the burden of his life and suffers from his own experiences.

But! Why does he continue to suffer? Why doesn't he give up his Bad mood and smile at the world? We do not take here "medical" cases of depression caused by a violation of the biochemical processes in the brain. We are talking about 90% of a different, psychological despondency of people whose brain is completely normal from the point of view of medicine. Why do they live in despondency, complain about him, but continue to be discouraged?

Sometimes because they subconsciously do not want to break out of this state. I emphasize - subconsciously, but on a conscious level, they assure that they are tired of such a life, that they want to be joyful and active.

In psychology, there is a term “secondary benefit”. It means that a person can benefit from their negative emotions, their plight, etc.

The poor are pitied, the sick are cared for, the foolish are in low demand, the unfortunate and helpless are taken care of. That is why it is so difficult for some people to leave the shell of despondency and longing, because otherwise they would have to take responsibility for their own lives, fight for their happiness and, perhaps, suffer for real.

What is the benefit? Good. Let's summarize what has been said and go through the benefits that this program will give you. First of all, you will get rid of debt, that is, you will close the financial "cons": pay off the loan for the house, car, and everything that makes you a debtor. Now you