Self-Sabotage and EMDR

How the past keeps tripping us up, and what EMDR can do about it

by Carol Easton

In psychological usage, self-sabotage describes behaviours or patterns that consistently undermine a person’s ability to meet their own goals, to be healthy, or to maintain stable relationships. That includes obvious acts (perhaps drinking or getting into debt etc when trying to recover), and subtler patterns (missing deadlines, picking fights, or passive avoidance) that repeatedly produce the same unwanted outcome: getting in the way of your own success or wellbeing. Psychologists discuss self-sabotage as both a behavioural pattern and a set of underlying beliefs and emotional memories/beliefs that drive that behaviour. Self-sabotage also include being involved (or around) with others in your life who can do the sabotage for you!

Common forms (the catalogue of sabotage)

Procrastination & avoidance — putting off critical tasks until they’re impossible, then blaming lack of time, others etc.
Perfectionism and over-control — setting impossible standards, then quitting or avoiding “failure.” Or success!
Relationship sabotage — testing or pushing away partners right when intimacy starts, repeating breakup patterns or creating relationship difficulties. Creating arguments or treating someone badly is also self-sabotage.
Self-handicapping — creating obstacles (e.g., partying before an exam, getting into debt etc) so failure can be blamed on the obstacle, not ability.
Self-medication & addictive behaviours — using substances, or things like gambling, working or food to numb feelings that would otherwise need to be processed.
Self-injury and active self-harm — cutting, burning, or other deliberate harm that releases distress in the short term.
Cognitive sabotage (negative self-talk) — repeated internal narratives like “I don’t deserve this,” which drive behaviour consistent with that belief. A friend of mine was in customer services and often was abused verbally by other people which, yes, was also self-sabotage.

These behaviours often look irrational from the outside but are protective in the person’s internal logic — they reduce intolerable emotion, protect against feared abandonment, shame, or keep someone in a predictable (even if painful) world. Over time they can “become a way of life” — an organised, automatic strategy the mind uses to stay (illusorily) safe.

Self-sabotage is rarely “just” laziness or moral failure — it’s usually a tightly organised system whose job is to protect against old, unbearable feelings. EMDR works directly on those stored emotional memories and the core beliefs that drive the behaviours, which is why clinicians increasingly use it as part of a plan to stop patterns that have become “a way of life.”

The evidence base is growing: EMDR reduces trauma symptoms, helps with self-harm targets, and improves self-esteem — all the moving parts behind self-sabotage.

EMDR is not a quick fix for behavioural habits. EMDR reduces the emotional fuel for the habit; behaviour change still requires learning new practices, experimenting, and sometimes skills work (DBT, executive-function coaching). In my practice I often give ‘homework’ in addition to EMDR.