When Coping Becomes a Pattern

As a psychotherapist, I often think about the ways we learn to cope with difficult periods in our lives.

We all have ways of dealing with stress.

Some of us exercise. Some talk to friends. Some keep busy. Others watch television, scroll through their phones, have a drink, go shopping, work longer hours or simply try to distract themselves from what is going on.

None of these things are necessarily problematic.

In fact, having ways to give ourselves a break from stress can be an important part of looking after ourselves.

The difficulty can begin when a particular behaviour becomes our main way of dealing with how we feel.

Something that initially provided relief can gradually become something we rely on.

Perhaps you notice that you always reach for your phone when you're anxious. You find yourself working late because it feels easier than going home and being alone with your thoughts. You have a drink because it's become the quickest way to switch off after a difficult day.

Again, this doesn't automatically mean there is a serious problem.

But it can be useful to become curious about the pattern.

What happens before the behaviour?

How are you feeling?

What does the behaviour give you in that moment?

And how do you feel afterwards?

These questions can tell us a great deal.

Often, the behaviour isn't really the issue at the beginning. It is the relief that matters.

We are tired, overwhelmed, anxious, lonely, frustrated or emotionally exhausted, and we discover something that changes that feeling, even temporarily.

The problem is that temporary relief can be very reinforcing.

If something makes us feel better in the short term, we are naturally more likely to repeat it the next time we experience the same emotion.

Over time, a pattern can develop.

Stress leads to the behaviour. The behaviour provides relief. The relief reinforces the behaviour. Then the next period of stress brings us back to it again.

This is one of the reasons I believe it is important not to judge the ways we cope too quickly.

Instead, we can become curious about what purpose the behaviour is serving.

Sometimes we are not trying to make our lives worse.

We are simply trying to make a difficult feeling easier to tolerate.

Psychotherapy can provide a space to explore these patterns without judgement and to understand what may be happening underneath them.

The aim isn't necessarily to take away every way we find relief.

It is about developing a wider range of ways to cope, so that one particular behaviour doesn't become the only way we know how to manage how we feel.

And sometimes, when we start looking more closely at our coping patterns, we discover that what began as a way of managing stress has become something we are finding increasingly difficult to manage ourselves.

That is where the conversation can begin to go deeper.