ADICTIONS - GROUPS - COPING MECHANISMS:

What is stopping you from achieving the results you want (by yourself)?

What Is a “Coping Mechanism”?

According to Coping Mechanisms by Emad B. Algorani and Vikas Gupta, coping is defined as “the thoughts and behaviors mobilized to manage internal and external stressful situations.” Unlike defense mechanisms, which are subconscious responses, coping mechanisms come from a “conscious and voluntary mobilization of acts.”

Healthy Coping Mechanisms

Coping can be a positive tool to help one overcome stress, emotional turmoil, and everyday situations. Unfortunately, many people turn to negative coping mechanisms as well. Coping Mechanisms says that coping is generally divided into four major categories:

Problem-focused coping, which addresses a problem that’s causing distress.
Emotion-focused coping, which utilizes tools like humor and positive reframing to reduce and transmute negative emotions.
Meaning-focused coping is where an individual can use cognitive strategies to manage the meaning of a situation.
Social coping is where an individual looks to social support as a means to reduce stress.

Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms

Maladaptive or unhealthy coping mechanisms can negatively affect a person’s mental and physical health. Mechanisms like avoidance and emotional suppression can even leave an individual feeling worse off than they were initially.

Coping Mechanisms notes that people who use these unhealthy coping mechanisms are “more likely to engage in health-risk behaviors than those with appropriate mechanisms.” These individuals are more likely to use illicit substances or even turn to dangerous acts like self-harm.

Using Substances as a Coping Mechanism for Trauma

A 2013 study in Addictive Behaviors examined the relationship between trauma and substance use coping in a diverse population of women who experienced sexual assault. According to the study, when individuals use substances to reduce painful memories of trauma, this could create serious long-term effects, including chronic PTSD.

The study says that substance use as a coping mechanism is a form of avoidance coping where emotions and memories are suppressed in the short term. A vicious cycle will be created where the individual now has a substance addiction on top of their traumatic experience. If trauma continues to be pushed down beneath the surface, it can come back to hurt you in many different ways. It’s important to face your trauma in a safe and effective way.

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No Therapy, Brainspotting, or Hypnotherapy will work or be successful unless the client wants it to be. As much as they are willing to join in the journey and own their participation in the process is the same degree to which they will experience change and a better life. Any coercion or pressure by the therapist will only create resistance, so there must be a strong therapeutic bond of trust and a safe, nonjudgmental environment in which the client can become vulnerable, let down their defenses, and experience something different than what they have always experienced, a new and better way.

PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! Do not believe that you can come to counseling for one hour a week or every two weeks… (while having 167 hours a week outside of the session for you to enact and practice faithfully those things you learned in session). If you do not consistently work on change outside of the session you will accomplish nothing and your lifestyle will NOT change. You will simply be deceiving yourself and wasting my time (and your $). I have limited years remaining and want to invest my time and talents in those who do not take it for granted. As you review this website you will discover I am a very unconventional kind of counselor. If you want traditional counseling please go to one of the many cookie-cutter counselors offered in your area. I cannot want a better/healthier life for you than you do and be successful at treating you. We HAVE to work together - collaboratively.