When trying to stop a behaviour is counter productive: Part 3 of things I learnt as a pet behaviourist

I learnt a lot from a lady we'll call Pam. One day we were talking about the classic things owners say during a consult. Pam's favorite was "I've tried everything to stop him/her doing x". She said it was her favorite, because as soon as an owner uttered it, she knew what the problem was. And knowing the problem, she knew how to solve it.

Animals do things to meet a need. They eat because they are hungry, drink because they are thirsty, run away because they are scared (the need here is safety), bark for attention etc etc. Pam even said that in her view, animals don't have behaviour problems, because they are just meeting a need. It is the owner that has a problem with the animal's behaviour.

Anyway, back to "I've tried everything to stop him/her doing x". If you try to stop a behaviour, the need behind it doesn't go away. So one of two things happen. The behaviour comes back, because the need still needs to be met, or the animal tries to meet the need with a different behaviour.

Take the dog that spends a lot of time on its own in a yard. It has a need for social and mental stimulation. So it starts jumping out of the yard. The owner builds the fence higher. The dog digs under the fence. The owner concretes the yard. The dog starts barking at passers-by. The owner shouts at the dog to shut up. The dog continues to bark. The owner buys an anti bark collar. The dog starts biting its tail etc etc.

As soon as an owner says they have tried everything to get xyz to stop, you immediately know the one thing they haven't tried - meeting the need. The trick to stopping a behaviour, is to provide an alternative for meeting the need. Once the need is met, there's nothing driving the behaviour, so it will stop happening.

I'm always reminded of this when I catch myself thinking, "I wish I could stop doing xyz" or "I wish so and so wouldn't do that" or "why can't I just stop being anxious!?"  or angry, or miserable or whatever. The answer is generally that I haven't yet replaced the habit with an alternative that better meets the underlying need.

What about you? Do you have any habits you wish you could stop? Have you ever found that the more you try to stop doing something, the more it happens?