Probing Deep in the Gambler's Unconscious

People addicted to gambling counteract their own achievements.

Psychiatrically, these people are referred to as psychic masochists. With the absence of discussing the explanations for this bizarre behavior, below illustrates a few clinical examples:

One patient, a man with exceptional skills in the field of advertising, could not get along well with his superiors. By taunting the vice-presidents, and eventually the president, of his company, he was dismissed from every job.

Interestingly enough, he was very calm at the beginning of every new job. He would start by being attentive only in creating an aura of smartness and success.

However, after this basic stage, he would begin on his routine of merciless provocation, which could go on until the inevitable disaster.

The man was not at all aware of this procedure, as mentioned. He knew only that he had an awesome temper, which he tried to hold back.

The reasons, were deep-seated for the man's course of control. One got the impression he was a parasitic child who contemplated it a terrible injustice that he had to earn his own living. His well-to-do parents should have supported him in a great style - that was his half-conscious aim.

Unconsciously, he wanted downfall; it would prove that he could be nothing but a parasite.

That desire was counteracted by his embellished self-esteem; before he could let himself to fail, therefore, he had to absolve his childlike, megalomanical opinion of himself. Megalomania at hand for his initial successes; the self-damaging ingredient for his ultimate failures.

The goal, parasitic as it is, was never the result of laziness and the desire to get; it was a strategy used to railroad his parents into the direction of refusal.

He is aware that his wealthy and acquisitive parents wanted him to be successful, at his own pace. By continuously losing his jobs, he continuously returned to a state of dependence upon his parents.

Then he could revel in a series of hatred, and self-pity for his parents' unfair treatment of him, as cited, for instance, in the minimal allowance they gave him.

He did not in the least appreciate that he himself had unconsciously antagonized the entire situation. Hadn't he established that he was skilled? He had.

Was he amenable for the fact that when he was younger, he had been taught always to tell the truth?He was not.

All he had done was tell his superiors what he thought of them. Thus, by minimizing all educational commands to ridiculousness, he could with admirable conscience discuss about his misfortune in having futile parents and superiors.