Consider this, the opposite of everything you thought you knew. The unconscious mind does not judge right from wrong, it just carries out programmes, T.O.T.E.s if you will, it has a strategy for every behaviour. If someone goes to bed highly motivated and then wakes up highly motivated and continues throughout the day then whatever they do in their mind works perfectly to maintain motivation. If a person goes to bed depressed and wakes up depressed and continues to be depressed, then whatever they do in their mind and body to maintain depression works perfectly, for achieving depression. Its just that they might not like it. However it is the conscious mind that decides good from bad, right from wrong. The key to making changes does not always lay with the conscious mind ( I believe R Bandler also said that the conscious mind can be a dickhead) This is where NLP and Hypnosis can make powerful changes. By reprogramming things at the unconscious level, outside of conscious awareness. So, Andy, without adding conscious opinion, accept that some people do the best they can with the only behaviour they have, behaviour which is achieving something for them, every behavoiour has a positive intention in that it has worked for them in the past and has got them something. Remember, people act out of the only behaviour that they have at the time and the secret is not to explain too much about "why" they do something = the problem, but to look at where the "problem behaviour" does have a use and a context and what other behaviour might be more acceptable in its place. Before you declare something "completely stupid" examine the ideas behind it. I would suggest you begin with reframing and the meta model. Also take a look on this site at subjects about Cause-effect (especially the threads that suggest there isn't any where human behaviour is concerned)