Coping strategies: what are they and how can they help us?
When we are faced with certain problems or challenges that life brings us, our ability to keep a cool head can be key to successfully overcoming obstacles.
One of the capacities that allow us to do so is coping. But what exactly is coping and why are some people better able to cope? reach your objectives?
Definition of "coping"
In psychology, coping has been defined as a set of cognitive and behavioral strategies that the person uses to manage internal or external demands that are perceived as excessive to the individual's resources (Lazarus and Folkman 1984). It can be considered as an adaptive response, of each one, to reduce stress that derives from a situation seen as difficult to face.
The ability to cope does not refer only to the practical resolution of problems, but also to the ability to manage emotions and stress in the face of the problem-situation. Modifying your own coping strategies to deal effectively with stressful events depends, then, on the way you evaluation of events, whether of our capacity and the possibility of capturing information, seeking help and social support in the context where you live.
The main coping strategies
Psychology studies highlight three main characteristics of coping strategies, from which they can be classified as follows: (1) assessment, search for the meaning of the critical event; (2) the trouble, try to confront reality, managing the consequences that are presented to us; and (3) the emotion, regulation of emotional aspects and attempt to maintain affective balance. In this order of ideas, we can identify that coping strategies are identified in three classes:
- Strategies focused on the problem,
- Strategies focused on emotions,
- Strategies based on avoidance.
Problem-focused strategies are often used in stressful conditions seen as controllable: they are strategies oriented towards the task, to achieve the resolution and / or modification of the trouble. On the other hand, strategies focused on emotions tend to be used when we perceive the stressful event as uncontrollable, as what can be experienced in the face of danger: you try to cope with the problem by focusing on your emotions and releasing them and trying to relax.
Finally, strategies based on avoidance tend to be handled in those moments in which the person assumes to postpone the Active coping due to the need to organize and collect their psychosocial resources before actively facing the situation: They are strategies focused on avoidance, distraction, taking distance from the stressful event, or turning to another activity so as not to think.
Facing a situation does not mean doing it the right way
In each of these coping classes, functional and / or dysfunctional strategies can be used. This leads to the consideration that, in reality, there are no a priori adaptive or maladaptive coping styles, there are strategies that may be effective in one situation, they may not be effective in others.
Developing our ability to cope well
Therefore, it can be concluded that the essential element for a good adaptation to the stressful event, especially in the case of long duration of stressful events over time, is both the flexibility in the use of coping strategies, the ability not to use a single strategy and change it if it is ineffective and maladaptive.
Some coping strategies that we can learn to develop could be:
- Keep an active check on the problem
- Try not to make the situation more dramatic
- Relax and analyze the situation from different perspectives,
- Trust in ourselves and in our abilities,
- Admit our limits, we are people, not robots!
- Ask for help from the most intimate people, when we recognize that we need support.
The welfare state is therefore accessible through a balance between our will and the possibility of acting accordingly. according to the context in which we live, thus strengthening our internal resources and those that are available in our environment.
