What is frustration and how does it affect your life?

Frustration: we define the concept and explain how to avoid falling into its clutches.

You hear a lot on a daily basis, in the media. "The coach ended up frustrated by not being able to go back to the game", "He was overcome by a strong feeling of frustration at not being able to get that job", and so on.

But, What exactly is frustration and what implications does it have for our success in the workplace and personally?

Frustration: defining the concept

The concept of frustration is defined as the feeling that is generated in an individual when he cannot satisfy a stated desire. Faced with these types of situations, the person usually reacts emotionally with expressions of anger, from anxiety or dysphoria, mainly.

Considering as an inherent aspect of human life the fact of assuming the impossibility of achieving everything that one desires and at the moment in which it is desired, the key point lies in the ability to manage and accept this discrepancy between the ideal and the real. Thus, the origin of the problem is not found in the external situations themselves, but in the way in which the individual faces them. It is understood, from this perspective, that frustration is made up of both a real situation that has occurred and the experience on an emotional level elaborated from said situation.

How to successfully cope with the feeling of frustration?

The proper management of frustration becomes an attitude and, as such, it can be worked on and developed; frustration is a transitory state and, therefore, reversible. In this way, an adequate management of frustration consists of training the individual in the acceptance of both the external event - what has happened - and the internal event - the emotional experience of it-.

• Related article: "Intolerance to frustration: 5 tricks and strategies to combat it"

Frustration can be categorized as a primary or instinctive response. It is a reaction that naturally shows an emotionally unpleasant state when interference occurs in the pursuit of a proposed goal.

This is the approach proposed by authors such as Dollard, Miler, Mower and Sears in 1938, originating a new field of research on this previously little explored subject. The intensity of the frustration reaction can vary substantially, to the point of causing damage even at the cognitive in situations of high severity, such as the appearance of alterations in memory capacity, attention or perception.

What is low frustration tolerance?

People who usually react by expressing frustration are attributed a functional characteristic called Low tolerance to frustration. This style seems to be more prevalent in today's Western society, where most of the phenomena that compose it are based on immediacy and the inability to wait.

Individuals who present this way of doing are also characterized by having rigid and inflexible reasoning, with little capacity to adapt to unscheduled changes. On the other hand, they usually have a series of distorted cognitions that are not adapted to reality, due to which they interpret as unbearable the duty to deal with more unpleasant emotions such as anger or sadness and leads, on the other hand, to elaborate a series of previous expectations that are far from rational, excessive and extremely demanding.

Studies linking frustration with violent behavior

The study by Barker, Dembo and Lewin in 1941 tested the link between frustration and aggression and he showed how decisive the expectations generated by the individual are prior to the potentially frustrating situation.

Subsequently, Berkowitz qualified these initial findings and included other modulating aspects in the aggression-frustration relationship, namely, motivations of the subject, the attitude of this in front of the problem, his past experiences and the cognitive-emotional interpretation made on his own reaction.

How do people with low tolerance for frustration behave?

In general and in a synthesized way, people with functioning based on low frustration tolerance have the following characteristics:

1. Have difficulty controlling emotions.

2. They are more impulsive, impatient and demanding.

3. They seek to satisfy their needs immediately, so that when they have to face waiting or the postponement of these can react explosively with attacks of anger or withdrawal and sadness extremes.

4. They can develop more easily than other individuals pictures of anxiety or depression before conflicts or great difficulties.

5. They believe that everything revolves around them and that they deserve everything they demand, so they feel any limit as unfair since it goes against their wishes. It is difficult for them to understand why everything they want is not given to them.

6. They have a low capacity for flexibility and adaptability.

7. They manifest a tendency to think radically: a thing is black or white, there is no middle ground.

8. They are easily demotivated before any difficulty.

9. They perform emotional blackmail if what they want is not fulfilled immediately, manipulating the other person with hurtful messages.

What factors can cause it?

From among factors that may predispose and / or precipitate the appearance of a low frustration tolerance disorder the following are distinguished:

• Temperament: more internal, biological and genetic dispositions such as temperament distinguish individuals in their innate abilities, which may include tolerance for frustration.
• Social conditions: depending on the social and cultural environment in which the person is circumscribed, it significantly influences personal and interpersonal functioning. Studies show that in Western society the occurrence of this type of problem is significantly higher than in other different cultures.
• Certain difficulties in emotional expression: a restricted vocabulary, a deficit in the ability to identify and recognize experienced emotions and a mistaken belief about the idea that manifesting unpleasant emotions is harmful and should be avoided, they are positively correlated with persistent low tolerance frustration.
• Some models that show deficits in self-control: in the case of minors, they learn a large part of their behavioral repertoire from what is observed in their referent figures. Parental models with little skill in managing frustration transmit the same incompetence to their children.
• A wrong interpretation of the signs: the subject can assess the frustrating situation as intensely threatening and dangerous, making adequate coping more complex.
• The reward for delayed action: Any attempt by the individual to make a self-controlled and delayed response should be reinforced in order for this behavior to gain strength and increase its frequency.

Learning Frustration Tolerance (and the REPT Model)

Tolerance to frustration is a learning that must be consolidated already during the early stages of child development.

Very young children do not yet have the ability to wait or understand that not everything can happen immediately. Thus, the procedure that usually operates when a low frustration tolerance operation is applied begins in the moment when the child cannot have what she wants and manifests a reaction of exaggerated catastrophism by that reason.

Then, given his interpretation of said situation as something unbearable, he begins to generate a series of self-directed internal verbalizations of rejection (“no I want to do / wait… ”), punitive (blaming others), catastrophic assessments of the situation (“ it's unbearable ”), lawsuits (“ it's not fair that… ”), self-deprecation (“ I hate myself”).

After this phase, behavioral level responses emerge in the form of tantrums, crying, complaints, oppositional behaviors or other similar manifestations. In this way, it is understood that there is a two-way relationship between the feeling of frustration and the negative interpretation of the situation where both elements feed back on each other.

From childhood to adolescence and adulthood

All of it, it can be perpetuated into adulthood if the person has not been instructed in learning related to modifying cognitive schemas and emotional interpretations that facilitate the adoption of a more tolerant and flexible style.

Among the main measures that are usually part of training to promote adequate tolerance to frustration are components such as relaxation techniques, learning to identify emotions, indicating specific instructions on when the child should ask for help in a given situation, conducting controlled behavioral trials in which potential scenarios are simulated, reinforcement positive of the achievements achieved by the child and acquisition of alternative and incompatible behaviors to the reaction of frustration.

Therapies and psychological strategies to combat it

Regarding the psychological techniques and strategies that are used as a resource to consolidate this type of learning in the parent-child environment, an adaptation of the Rational Emotive Therapy by Albert Ellis: the “Rational Emotive Parental Training (REPT)” model.

The REPT is a useful tool that helps parents better understand how emotions work, what purpose they have and how they relate to the cognitions and interpretations that are generated after an experienced situation. It becomes a guide to apply in relation to children's problems as well as a self-application for adults.

More specifically, the objectives of the REPT are to provide parents with relevant information about the model that explains emotional regulation so that they can transmit this knowledge to their children and serve as a guide to use in potentially destabilizing situations, achieving an adequate management of emotions raised. On the other hand, is an instrument that offers a set of information that enables them to detect erroneous applied educational guidelines, as well as a greater understanding of the motivations underlying the child's behavior. Finally, this proposal aims to facilitate the internalization of a more active functioning in relation to coping and solving problems more efficiently.

The main contents included in this new and effective model are the components: parental psychoeducation in the proper management of own emotions that facilitate correct educational practice and self-acceptance that keeps them away from stigmatizing situations, training in alternative responses to frustration focused on a state of calm where the causes for which the demand cannot be met are explained in a reasonable way child, the exercise of empathic capacity by both parties to facilitate the understanding of the other and the application of the principles of Behavior Modification theories (positive / negative reinforcement and positive / negative punishment), fundamentally.

In conclusion

In conclusion, it has been possible to observe how the phenomenon of frustration becomes a set of reactions learned that can be modified with the establishment of new cognitive-behavioral repertoires alternative.

These learnings are a very important part of the set of aspects to be integrated during child development, since they are at the base of a little active functioning in the resolution of problems and potentially complex situations in later stages; from a general attitude of loss of motivation that can make it difficult to achieve various life goals; and a tendency to manifest unrealistic cognitive schemes and close to the catastrophization of the situations experienced.

For all these reasons, it seems essential to carry out joint family work from early times to prevent the appearance of this highly adaptive behavioral style.

Bibliographic references:

• Barker, R., Dembo, T., and Lewin, K. (1941). Frustration and Regression: An Experiment with Young Children. (University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare, XVIII, No. 1.).
• Dollard, J., Miller, N. E., Doob, L. W., Mowrer, O. H. and Sears, R. R. (1939). Frustration and aggression. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Ellis, A. Bernard, M. AND. (2006). "Rational Emotive Behavioral approaches to childhood disorder." Springer Science and Business Media, Inc.
• García Castro, J.L. (s.f.). Children with low tolerance for frustration.