Control patterns
Why do people bite their nails and what is the compulsion to do this when you are worried or concerned?
Some people bite their nails just to keep them short but, generally speaking, nail-biting is a "control pattern". The purpose of a control pattern is to stop or reduce the effects of bad feelings. These feelings may be difficult to control or they may be old ones which we have grown used to controlling.
If we are worried about something and are unable to tell anyone about it, then the problem occupies our minds. However, if we can tell someone about it (without interruption) then we are able to view it with a more relaxed attitude and the control pattern loses its purpose and reduces or stops.
Unfortunately most people are not trained to listen well to other people - most of our conversations consist of interruption - and the upsets that we have experienced accumulate day after day. These build up over the years and can lead to many stress-related problems including illness and anti-social behaviour. We have all learnt how to distract ourselves from these bad feelings and nail-biting is one of the ways we do it.
Control patterns differ from person to person, but there are many obvious signs apart from nail-biting: jiggling the leg, hard or frequent blinking, hand wringing, sniffing, fiddling with something and many others.
Other not so obvious ones include smoking, talking too quickly about trivia, talking too slowly, eating and drinking when not hungry, cleaning things that are not dirty, being busy when it is time to relax, overworking and being too serious or too trivial.
Much medical time is wasted treating the control pattern and not the underlying worries. Boys are especially prone to being unable to talk about their problems and are criticised for having obvious control patterns. As they get older, many men (and women) drop the obvious control patterns and substitute them with others such as tobacco, alcohol or drug abuse.
Other manifestations include driving too fast or exercising unreasonable control in personal relationships. These control patterns are seen by some as being macho and are reinforced in our society by advertising.
The good news is that by learning how to exchange good listening time with other people, we can release the bad feelings and, reduce stress and the subsequent need for the control patterns.
Colin Stroud
Reprinted with permission from the New Scientist
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