Secondary gain (n.) is what illness pays its patient, and every benefit subtracts from the wish to get well.
7 definitions
The Secondary gain (n.) is a resistance the ego knows nothing about: illness as excuse, as power over others, as escape.
Secondary gain (n.) is not why symptoms form: the war pensioner did not lose his leg to live on his pension.
Secondary gain (n.) includes the narcissistic satisfaction an obsessional's system or a paranoiac's delusions bring, which binds ego and symptom and works on the side of resistance.
The Secondary gain (n.) can make neurosis a weapon: the illness lets one complain where complaining about the marriage itself was not allowed.
Secondary gain (n.) is the crippled workman who learns to live by begging on his injury: cure him and you take away his livelihood.
Secondary gain (n.) is the later advantage a symptom finds; primary gain is the saving of mental effort when falling ill solves a conflict.