These methods usually impede emotional processing, worsen our stress, and hinder efficient problem-solving. Unhealthy coping mechanisms can result in a cycle of unfavorable feelings, decreased vanity, unwell well being, and even bodily hurt (Suls & Fletcher, 1985; Zuckerman, 1999).
Elements influencing our coping decisions
Our alternative of coping mechanisms is influenced by elements corresponding to character traits, cultural norms, and, most significantly, our previous experiences.
Typically, the roots of our unhealthy coping mechanisms could be present in our childhood, and they’re additionally formed by our early attachment types.
We could, for instance, have lacked good coping position fashions, our feelings could have been delegitimized or ridiculed, or we could have grown up in an unstable and even violent atmosphere, the place we had been uncovered to many threatening stressors.
A few of us could resort to unhealthy coping as a consequence of a lack of expertise of more healthy options (Taylor & Brown, 1988). Moreover, social help and entry to sources play essential roles in shaping our particular person coping methods (Thoits, 1995).
Typically, unhealthy coping mechanisms can simply develop into dangerous habits – automated, default responses to our stressors, and in these instances we may have to hunt skilled assist to develop extra generative methods to boost our emotional resilience.
Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms: A Checklist
Unhealthy coping mechanisms, outlined as maladaptive methods, used to deal with adversarial feelings or nerve-racking conditions, have been the topic of in depth psychological analysis (Smith et al., 2017).
Whereas these mechanisms usually present short-term reduction, they normally result in long-term psychological, emotional, and even bodily hurt (Jones & Oliver, 2015). In the long term, unhealthy coping perpetuates unfavorable outcomes.
The most typical maladaptive coping strategies embrace the next (Thompson et al., 2010; Enns et al., 2018; Wadsworth, 2015; Tapu, 2016):
1. Substance abuse
Substance abuse, together with alcohol, drug, and ache killer consumption, is a quite common unhealthy coping mechanism (Dawson et al., 2018).
The momentary reduction supplied by substances could result in dependancy, exacerbating our psychological well being points (Hawke et al., 2019).
As with most unhealthy coping mechanisms, extended and extreme substance abuse normally turns into probably the most urgent problem in our life and turns into the best menace to our wellbeing.
2. Avoidance and denial
Avoidance and denial contain ignoring or suppressing distressing feelings or conditions (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014).
Such mechanisms hinder our emotional processing and contribute to heightened stress and anxiousness (Carver & Scheier, 2016).
If we keep away from tackling our issues or deny that they even exist, we can’t resolve them. This coping mechanism results in stagnation and paralysis and hinders our emotional development (Smith et al., 2017).
3. Self-harm
Self-harm, corresponding to slicing or burning oneself, is a very distressing and a counterproductive coping technique (Klonsky et al., 2018).
This habits can provide a fleeting sense of management and reduction however usually ends in elevated emotional turmoil and may result in harmful bodily accidents (Zetterqvist, 2015).
4. Detrimental self-talk
Partaking in unfavorable self-talk, throughout which we criticize or put ourselves down excessively, is linked to decreased vanity and heightened despair (Brakemeier et al., 2014).
The reinforcement of pessimistic ideas and unfavorable assumptions about ourselves can perpetuate and amplify our misery (Beck, 2019).
Detrimental self-talk is a quite common coping mechanism, and, once more, it’s a mechanism that begins out as a protecting technique designed to save lots of us from hazard that subsequently morphs right into a maladaptive one which holds us again in quite a few areas of our life.
David Burns and different CBT-practitioners have offered extra detailed descriptions of the varied cognitive distortions that normally decide our unfavorable self-talk (Burns, 1999).
The most typical cognitive distortions contain all-or-nothing considering, overgeneralization, psychological filtering, disqualifying positives, leaping to conclusions within the type of mind-reading and fortune-telling, magnification and minimization, emotional reasoning, ought to statements, labeling and mislabeling, and personalization (Burns, 1999).
5. Emotional consuming or binge consuming
We may additionally interact in emotional consuming or binge consuming to numb our feelings and to deal with overwhelming stressors in our lives.
Like different maladaptive coping methods, this one, too, ends in a traditional vicious circle, in that our unhealthy response to issues quickly turns into the principle problem in our life.
These of us participating in binge consuming develop into trapped in a cycle of guilt, disgrace, and self-hatred which is the direct consequence of this coping mechanism.
6. Isolation
One other unhealthy coping mechanism is withdrawing from social interactions. Isolating ourselves from our friends, too, is a detrimental alternative of coping mechanism as a result of avoidance- or fear-driven isolation can result in psychological well being and wellbeing points.
Once we minimize ties with different individuals, we deprive ourselves of energizing human interactions and nourishing relationships, and thus considerably slim our alternatives for therapeutic and rising.
7. Procrastination
Procrastination means avoiding essential duties or delaying their completion. Apparently, we frequently procrastinate on exactly the duties which are most essential to us as a result of we can’t bear the considered doing them in a less than excellent approach and even failing at them.
Once more, procrastination could present momentary reduction as a result of once we procrastinate, we stay within the sphere of chance the place we are able to bask in fantasies of excellent or near-perfect outcomes.
Nonetheless, procrastination will increase our stress in the long term, for it massively decreases our sense of self-efficacy and can be associated to emotions of guilt and disgrace.
8. Overworking
Many people additionally interact in overworking to deal with emotions of disconnection, vacancy, lack of goal, and alienation. We may additionally self-medicate with work to keep away from addressing issues in different areas of our lives, corresponding to our household, partnerships, or friendship circles.
But the issue with overworking is that it’s prone to irritate the challenges we don’t handle. And the extra time we spend at work, the emptier our lives develop into in different domains.
It turns into more and more tough to cease and face that vacancy. What’s extra, overworking additionally will increase our threat of burnout and results in a lower in total life satisfaction. It could additionally result in varied stress-related well being issues.
9. Aggression
Aggression, too, could be a maladaptive coping mechanism, which might take the type of expressing anger, frustration, and irritation in dangerous and upsetting methods and inappropriate contexts.
Aggression results in strained relationships and can in the end hurt and push the people who find themselves closest to us away.
Should you need assistance with this unhealthy coping mechanism, head on over to this Anger Administration Information for constructive steerage.
10. Extreme display screen time
Lastly, we may additionally bask in extreme display screen time to numb disagreeable emotions and ideas, or to keep away from complicated duties or challenges.
What counts as extreme and unhealthy display screen time is tough to generalize, although. Many people have to make use of screens for work, and screens may also be platforms for significant social interactions, or present us with stimulating concepts, or else assist us chill out.
Most of us will likely be responsible of losing a while every day on social media or gaming platforms, or else we could have a Netflix binge-watching behavior.
Display time as a coping mechanism turns into problematic once we are hooked on gaming or spend a lot time on-line that we can’t address our every day duties and neglect our real-life relationships and self-care.
To conclude, in all ten instances, we are able to observe the identical underlying mechanism at work: The habits or ideas that had been initially designed to assist us cope develop into addictive or ordinary, and shortly flip into our most urgent major drawback. In different phrases: our methods to answer our emotional crises find yourself turning into the disaster.
You may additionally get pleasure from this quick explanatory video on barely completely different choices of unhealthy coping mechanisms.