Social paradox:

When behaviors produces the opposite of the intended result.

Social Behaviors That Backfire:

Below are examples of well-intentioned behaviors that often backfire socially, along with therapeutic approaches to address them.

Excessive Reassurance-Seeking

Intention: To feel secure and validated in relationships
How it backfires: Creates relationship fatigue, pushes others away, and paradoxically increases anxiety
Therapeutic approach: A therapist might help the client identify underlying insecurities and gradually reduce reassurance-seeking behaviors. “Cognitive restructuring” from CBT could address black and white thinking and over generalization; two thinking patterns that contribute to these behaviors.

Overhelping/Caretaking

Intention: To be useful, needed, and to demonstrate care
How it backfires: Creates dependency, resentment, boundary issues, and burnout
Therapeutic approach: Therapists might explore the client’s core beliefs about self-worth, help them develop identity beyond caregiving, and practice setting healthy boundaries. They might explore family-of-origin patterns that established caregiving as a primary mode of connection.

Conflict Avoidance

Intention: To maintain harmony and prevent rejection
How it backfires: Leads to unresolved issues, resentment, disconnection, and eventually larger conflicts
Therapeutic approach: A therapist would help to increase awareness of flight response; and raise the threshold for when the urge to avoid conflict kicks in.

If a client has the ego strength and openness to practicing new ways of being, some therapists use role-playing to practice healthy confrontation, focusing on internal sensations, spirit, and emotions vs. only discussing “what to do.”

Perfectionism

Intention: To earn approval and avoid criticism
How it backfires: Creates distance through impossible standards, reduces authenticity, and leads to burnout
Therapeutic approach: Therapy might focus on self-compassion practices, examining the origins of perfectionistic standards, and gradual exposure to “good enough” performance while tolerating discomfort.

Too much Self-Disclosure too soon:

Intention: To create closeness and intimacy
How it backfires: Overwhelms others, creates inappropriate relationship pacing, and can trigger avoidance
Therapeutic approach: Therapists might help the client understand appropriate intimacy pacing, recognize social cues, and develop a wider repertoire of connection strategies beyond emotional disclosure.

People-Pleasing

Intention: To be liked and accepted
How it backfires: Leads to inauthenticity, unsustainable commitments, and resentment
Therapeutic approach: Therapy would explore fear of rejection, develop identity beyond others’ approval, and use incremental exercises to practice saying “no” and expressing authentic preferences.

Overexplaining or Justifying

Intention: To be understood and prevent misinterpretation
How it backfires: Comes across as defensive, creates doubt in others, and often reinforces negative impressions
Therapeutic approach: A therapist might help identify approval-seeking triggers, practice concise communication, and develop tolerance for being occasionally misunderstood.

Lying or Stretching the Truth:

Intention: To impress others, gain acceptance, or protect self-esteem

How it backfires: Damages trust, creates distance when discovered, and reinforces feelings of inadequacy

Therapeutic Framework:

Therapeutic approach: A therapist might:

– Explore the underlying feelings of inadequacy or fear of rejection driving the behavior

– Help identify situations that trigger embellishment or lying

– Examine early experiences where the client may have learned that their authentic self wasn’t “enough”

– Work on developing self-acceptance and recognizing inherent worth

– Practice vulnerability in safe settings, starting with small truths

– Role-play managing the discomfort of being perceived as “ordinary” 

– Gradually build confidence in authentic self-presentation

– Create a hierarchy of truth-telling challenges, from low to high risk

– Acknowledge and process shame that may arise from both the behavior and addressing it

The therapeutic relationship would offer a space where complete honesty is encouraged without judgment, helping establish a new pattern of authentic connection that can extend to other relationships.

In addressing these other patterns described above; therapists typically employ several key approaches:

1. Validate the positive intention behind the behavior, helping clients understand their actions as adaptive attempts to meet legitimate needs
2. Connect the dots between childhood experiences and current patterns, identifying how these behaviors may have been necessary or rewarded in past environments
3. Develop awareness of the actual impact versus intended impact through feedback and reflection. Caution, many teenagers report “intent vs impact” is overused by parents and educators. One teenager said, “…if this were a tire, it would be bald.”
4. Create safety for behavior change by addressing the underlying fears that drive the cyclical patterns of maladaptive behavior.
5. Practice incremental exposure to new behaviors in a graduated fashion, starting with lower-stakes situations
6. Develop alternative strategies that can meet the same underlying needs in more effective ways
7. Process emotions that arise when letting go of familiar coping mechanisms

The therapeutic relationship itself often becomes a space for honest self reflection; a starting place for shifting patterns in real-time. Through self determination, a clients in therapy decide which behaviors they wish to generalize to other settings.