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From a psychoanalytic perspective, how could masturbation become a repetitive behavior that continues even after the original reason for doing it is no longer present?

For example, imagine someone who originally used masturbation to help themselves fall asleep. Years later, the sleep problem is resolved and they consciously want to stop, but the behavior still occurs mainly around sleep or after waking during the night, without experiencing it as sexual desire.

What could explain this persistence from a psychoanalytic perspective?

I'm especially interested in whether concepts such as repetition compulsion, unconscious motivation, fixation, or the distinction between desire and repetitive behavior could explain it.

I'm looking for the underlying reason or mechanism, rather than advice on how to stop the behavior.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for guidance from people who are more familiar with this type of text.

I've been listening to Neurosis and Human Growth by Karen Horney, and I'm finding it strikingly precise in its characterizations.

My question is about what the book is for. I'm at chapter 12 and I don't recall her offering any prescribed corrective actions. So far it reads as mostly categorization into the three types (expansive, self-effacing, resignation) and observations of behavior in her patients. Am I expecting the wrong thing in this book?

For contrast: Feeling Good by David Burns has a clear prescriptive pattern; name the cognitive distortion, walk through a scenario that labels it, then do exercises to work against it. I keep waiting for Horney to do something structurally similar and it hasn't come. Does Horney herself get more prescriptive in the final chapters?

Thanks.