Low tolerance for frustration: how it appears and what to do about it

We can't get everything we want. This simple phrase expresses a fact that can be extremely hard depending on how much we want it. Sometimes circumstances do not help, sometimes we create excessively demanding goals for ourselves or sometimes even a level is required of us that we cannot reach at least for the moment.

This occurs throughout the life cycle, from birth to grave, and is the reason for different levels of frustration that we must face. And frustration can be hard to deal with.

Each one of us has a specific capacity to tolerate it, there are people who have a high tolerance to the fact of being frustrated and for which it does not generate an impediment but a simple annoyance and other people with low tolerance for frustration who at the slightest difficulty become paralyzed and abandon the action. It is about the last of the cases that we are going to talk about throughout this article.

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a natural emotion

Before assessing what a low tolerance for frustration is, it is necessary to take into account what this concept implies. Frustration is a feeling or sensation of an aversive nature in which a mixture of sadness, anger, and disappointment at the non-achievement of an objective or the impossibility of reaching a goal or wish It is not really necessary that it be a personal desire, but also

can appear before the rupture with the expectations and demands put on us.

It is a natural sensation that is not pathological at all (although depending on how it can become pathological), and as we have said before, it is present continuously throughout life whenever a situation of denial and impossibility. At the beginning and throughout childhood we tend to have a very low tolerance for frustration, but Throughout development we learn little by little to control it, to manage it and to generate responses alternatives. But what does a low tolerance for frustration imply?

Low tolerance for frustration

It is understood as low tolerance to frustration or intolerance to frustration to the absence or low level of capacity to withstand that set of events or circumstances that may frustrate us. The low tolerance to frustration means that before its appearance we are not able to react, we abandon our action and we are unable to persevere and fight against difficulties. In other words, those who have a low tolerance for frustration have great difficulty in manage negative feelings such as stress, discomfort or not achieving one's own wishes.

Generally this inability to self-manage causes behavioral manifestations in the form of sullen, irritable and hostile behavior. Failures are usually seen as caused by others or by circumstances, generally with an apparent tendency to feel like a victim and to project blame onto others. They tend to be people who tend to give up quickly by perceiving possible obstacles, focusing on how difficult things are and not seeing or believing in the possibility of solving the problem and managing to overcome difficulties on their own.

They focus on emotion, suffering and pain and their avoidance. This can lead to the subject becoming impatient, dependent, demanding and even extremely passive. In some cases, it can trigger impulse control disorders, such as kleptomania, or aggressive and violent behavior towards those who do not fulfill or hinder their own wishes.

A low tolerance for frustration also affects the ability to wait to delay gratification, something that could be essential to achieve greater than immediate rewards. It is therefore associated with the need to satisfy their needs at the very moment they appear. This makes it difficult, for example, to start doing a necessary task in pursuit of the gratification generated by resting or having fun. In turn, both the difficulty in completing tasks and the perception of this lack of ability can be perceived as frustrating, worsening the situation and increasing the person's discomfort.

The low tolerance to frustration also has great consequences for the subject in multiple vital spheres: at the family level and social personal relationships suffer, sometimes generating a distance from the rest and destroying their relationship with their around. At work level is linked to a lack of flexibility and a lack of response to unforeseen events, something that makes hiring and productivity difficult. As far as self-actualization is concerned, a low tolerance for frustration tends to lead to severe difficulties in achieving big goals. long term and this can also generate a decrease in self-esteem and self-concept or the appearance of utilitarian, narcissistic or histrionic.

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Causes of this low tolerance

We have previously mentioned that tolerance to frustration is something that is acquired throughout development, with almost all children having a very low capacity for it. Whether or not this tolerance develops correctly can depend on a large number of variables.

In the first place, and although it develops throughout life, there are differences at the biological level that facilitate this fact. This is observable at the temperamental level., existing young children who are able to endure frustration and hope for a better future or even generate strategies to achieve their ultimate goal. Others get frustrated and give up at the slightest difficulty, and many others even generate disruptive behaviors such as childhood tantrums as a result of their inability to control their anger.

Experience is one of the main factors that explain differences in tolerance to frustration. To have a high tolerance it will be necessary that throughout life we ​​have seen that our goals and desires are achievable but that this requires an effort, having seen an association between effort and goal achievement both short and long term. Also the awareness that waiting and not seeking immediate pleasure can lead to greater rewards over time.

Linked to the above, one of the reasons that can lead a person to have little tolerance for being frustrated, even in adulthood, are the educational models that we have had. Excessively permissive parents who respond quickly to any child's demand encourage the child not to have to make an effort and learn that the things we want are quickly achieved. Once this pattern is fixed, the subject will not be able to react in the presence of difficulties and what could be a mere discomfort or obstacle becomes an impenetrable wall that contradicts them and arouses their anger.

Another reason for the low tolerance for frustration is the existence of expectations on the part of the subject that are too high to have the real possibility of fulfilling them, so that his efforts never reach the required or desired level and he learns that it is not possible to achieve the own goals. A continued fear of failure sets in, and over time the ability to tolerate it dies away. This can be derived from learning, either by hyperdemanding parental models or excessive social demands.

How to improve the ability to tolerate frustration

As we have mentioned, a low tolerance for frustration can be enormously limiting. Fortunately, we can train our endurance capacity and our abilities to become more resilient and tolerant of aversive and frustrating situations.

Probably the first aspect to work on is to analyze frustration in isolation, recognizing its origin and why it is so unbearable for us. Once this is done, we can move on to using different methods to resolve the situation.

One of the strategies is to restructure personal beliefs regarding the levels of demand and what we can achieve. It will be important to train ourselves in setting realistic goalswhether or not they are ambitious, and appreciate that in all cases it will be easy for unforeseen events to appear. It is also useful that if we have very high goals we try to divide them in such a way that we make objectives intermediate steps that will lead us to the final goal, without trying to achieve our goal immediately from the beggining. The generation of alternative strategies to the original is also essential.

Likewise, the relationship with failure and frustration must also be worked on, not seeing them as synonymous with expiration but as learning that will lead us to achieve our goals.

Another element to train could be to undergo exposure to frustrating situations with response prevention. Training in stress and anger management and training in problem solving are essential. If the problems are linked to the social sphere, it may also be necessary to work on social skills.

Bibliographic references:

• Jeronimus et al. (2017). "Frustration." Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences, Edition: 1. Springer, New York, Editors: Virgil Zeigler-Hill and Todd K. Shackleford, pp. 1 - 8.
• Miller, NE (July 1941), "frustration-aggression hypothesis", Psychological Review, 48 (4): pp. 337 - 42