Steve Pavlina has a very good post on a subject that often comes up when reading about the psychology of trading: Fear of Success: What will happen if you succeed? Like Mark Douglas (and others) say, traders often get exactly what they want out of the market (pain, something to complain about, a thrill/gambling, an opportunity to be reckless/ break all the rules/have no rules at all…), whether they know it or not.
There is an *excellent* article in December’s SFO on the psychology of trading in which it relates Freud’s “Repetition Compulsion” to the tendency for people to constantly act out their *hidden* psychological feelings about their right (or lack thereof) to success. I was skeptical and almost skipped it, but I am glad I didn’t!