Avoidance
Identifying "Secondary Gains" from an Avoided Situation
This questionnaire helps uncover hidden benefits or payoffs that reinforce a client's avoidance.
When a client is stuck in an avoidance pattern, insight alone is often not enough to produce change. They may agree the behavior is counterproductive and express a sincere desire to stop, yet remain unable to act. This frustrating impasse suggests the avoidance is serving a hidden purpose, providing a subtle benefit that outweighs the conscious motivation to move forward.
This directive helps bring that hidden calculus to the surface. It guides the client to articulate the unspoken advantages and protections their avoidance provides. Instead of just a problem to be eliminated, the behavior is reframed as a strategy. The client gains a more complex understanding of their own motivations, illuminating what need the avoidance is meeting.
Identifying "Secondary Gains" from an Avoided Situation
Think of a specific situation, task, or conversation you have been consistently avoiding. Hold that situation in your mind as you answer the following questions. Write down your answers.
The situation I am avoiding is:
What is the obvious negative consequence of continuing to avoid this?
Now, consider the other side. What do you gain by not acting?
What problem does your avoidance temporarily solve?
Who has to change their behavior or step in for you because you are not dealing with this?
What uncomfortable feeling do you get to sidestep by putting this off?
What difficult decision do you get to postpone?
By not acting, what standard are you protecting yourself from failing to meet?
What resources (time, energy, money) are you conserving by not engaging?
If you successfully handled this situation, what new responsibility or expectation would you have to face?
What story about yourself, others, or the world remains intact as long as you avoid this?
Generated with Rapport7 — rapport7.com