Coping strategies: what are they and how can they help us?

We describe the main ways of coping with problems (for better or worse).

When faced with certain problems or challenges that life throws at us, our ability to keep a cool head can be key to successfully overcoming them, our ability to keep a cool head can be key to successfully overcoming obstacles..

One of the skills that enables us to do so is coping. But what exactly is coping and why are some people better able to achieve their goals?

Definition of coping

In psychology, coping has been defined as a set of cognitive and behavioral strategies that a person uses to manage internal or external demands that are perceived as excessive for the individual's resources (Lazarus and Folkman 1984). It can be seen as an adaptive response, by each individual, to reduce the stress deriving from a situation seen as difficult to cope with.

The ability to cope refers not only to the practical resolution of problems, but also to the ability to manage emotions and stress in the face of the problem-situation. the ability to manage emotions and stress in the face of the problem-situation.. Modifying one's coping strategies to deal effectively with stressful events depends, therefore, both on the way one evaluates the events and on one's capacity and ability to gather information, seek help and social support in the context in which one lives.

The main coping strategies

Psychological studies highlight three main characteristics of coping strategies, from which they can be classified as follows: (1) The appraisalthe search for the meaning of the critical event; (2) the problem(2) the emotion of the person, trying to confront reality, dealing with the consequences that are presented to us; and emotion(4) emotion, regulation of the emotional aspects and attempt to maintain the affective balance. In this order of ideas, we can identify that coping strategies are identified in three classes:

Problem-focused strategies are usually used in conditions of stress seen as controllable: they are task-oriented strategies, to achieve the resolution and/or modification of the problem. Emotion-focused strategies, on the other hand, tend to be used when we perceive the stressful event as uncontrollable, as what can be experienced in the face of danger: one tries to cope with the problem by focusing on the emotions and releasing them and trying to relax..

Finally, avoidance-based strategies tend to be used in those moments in which the person assumes to postpone active coping because of the need to organize and gather 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 in order not to think.

Coping does not mean coping in the right way.

In each of these types of coping, functional and/or dysfunctional coping 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 that may not be effective in other situations..

Developing our capacity for good coping

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 flexibility in the use of coping strategiesespecially in the case of long duration of stressful events over time, is both flexibility in the use of coping strategies, the ability not to use a single strategy and to change it if we find it ineffective and maladaptive.

Some coping strategies that we can learn to develop could be:

The state of well-being is therefore accessible through a balance between our will and the possibility of acting in accordance with the context in which we live, thus strengthening our internal resources and those available in our environment.

• Strategies focused on emotions,
• Strategies based on avoidance.
  • Maintaining active control over the problem.
  • Try not to make the situation more dramatic
  • Relax and analyze the situation from different perspectives,
  • Trusting ourselves and our abilities,
  • Admit our limits, we are people, not robots!
  • To ask for help to the most intimate people, when we recognize that we need a support.