"Adaptive" vs. "Maladaptive" Coping: An Example from the Life of a Therapist (2024)

FAQs

"Adaptive" vs. "Maladaptive" Coping: An Example from the Life of a Therapist? ›

Adaptive coping strategies are like the trustworthy companions who guide us through rough waters, making us resilient and strong. In contrast, maladaptive coping strategies are the temptations that lead us down a dark path, offering short-term relief but causing long-term harm.

Maladaptive coping strategies reduce the symptoms related to stress for a short time, but have no influence on the thing that is causing the stress, such as drinking, drugs and isolation. Examples of adaptive coping strategies, on the other hand, include sleep, planning, exercise, and talking.

For example, an avid reader who is losing their eyesight might adapt by learning Braille or buying audiobooks. They find a way to continue enjoying books. Maladaptive behavior would be not acknowledging vision loss or the need for change. It feels out of control and painful to think about, so no action is taken.

Examples of maladaptive coping strategies include avoidance behaviors like drinking, emotional numbing, gambling, and social withdrawal. Emotional masking, negative judgments, overcompensation, and relying on the same approach over and over to similar situations are also forms of maladaptive coping.

A positive adaptive pattern is where an individual adjusts to the situation in a way that results in valued outcomes, such that they are nourished and growing and feel healthy and happy. Maladaptive patterns are the reverse.

Self-adaptive mechanisms, sometimes simply called adaptive mechanisms, in engineering, are underactuated mechanisms that can adapt to their environment. One of the most well-known example of this type of mechanisms are underactuated fingers, grippers, and robotic hands.

Suppression, considered a maladaptive emotion regulation strategy, involves inhibiting emotional expression in response to an emotion eliciting event. Emotions are generally functional and adaptive processes that allow individuals to confront multiple challenges in a flexible manner.

A psychological adaptation is most often defined as a proclivity toward a certain behavior or thought pattern. For instance, a fear of snakes might be a psychological adaptation that helped protect people from injury or death as a result of being bitten.

Maladaptive behaviors are actions or ways of behaving that are unhelpful or counterproductive in achieving our goals or maintaining our well-being. These behaviors often result from maladaptive beliefs and can lead to difficulties in our lives and relationships.

What are maladaptive patterns in counseling? ›

Maladaptive behaviors are actions that prevent people from adapting, adjusting, or participating in different aspects of life. Such actions are intended to help relieve or avoid stress, but they are often disruptive and may contribute to increased distress, discomfort, and anxiety over time.

Maladaptive behaviors are generally those that hinder you from adapting to or coping with situations or stressors in healthy ways. Examples can include self-isolation due to anxiety, sleeping too much due to depression, and lashing out at others when overwhelmed or angry.

Adaptive strategies

Taking breaks, setting boundaries, and practicing mindfulness and meditation can also help reduce stress levels and promote relaxation. Another healthy way to cope with stress is by seeking support from others.

The adaptive strategies factor converged with quality of life and work. It also diverged from phobia, stress, and anxiety. Maladaptive coping strategies converged with phobia, stress, and anxiety and diverged from the quality of work and life.

Examples of maladaptive behaviors include: avoiding situations that may be stressful or difficult. hiding feelings rather than asserting individual opinions or emotions.

Adaptive behaviors help us respond to changes, challenges, and setbacks in healthy ways. Maladaptive behaviors, conversely, are dysfunctional coping mechanisms we develop to evade and protect ourselves from life's hardships.

Defense mechanism is adaptive when when you are able to use your cognitive dissonance to handle sudden change (either internal or external ) in a positive way. It becomes maladaptive when it is used wrongly irrespective of the outcome.

For example, a person who holds in their emotions instead of talking to someone or working through them in a healthy way would be using suppression in a maladaptive manner and likely to experience negative consequences.

Some people go for a run, do yoga, or exercise to relieve their stress. Other examples of adaptive coping skills are by solving the problem, using humor, taking a break or pausing before reacting, or even just being mindful in the moment. All of these are examples of things we can do that don't make the event worse.