Stress Management
4. Coping with stress
4.1. Coping
Adaptive coping
In this video we will introduce you to the notion of “coping with stress” – how to manage stress. There is no right or wrong way to cope with stress. However, there are healthy and unhealthy ways of coping – ways that reduce stress or ways that maintain or induce more stress.
Basically, there are two ways of coping; problem-focused and emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping is ’fixing’ the problem – so to speak. It’s a healthy way of coping with stress if you perceive a high degree of control over a situation or person that you perceive as stressful. Emotion-focused coping means managing the emotional influences of the stressor. Emotion-focused coping is a healthy way of coping with stress if you perceive a low degree of control over a situation or person that you perceive as stressful.
As one does not perceive high or low degree of control over all things, the goal is, through increased awareness on how much control one perceives, “adaptive coping” – the ability to move between problem-focused and emotion-focused coping.
(6 min. 33 sec.)
Presentation in PowerPoint:
Activity
Make a list of your problem-focused coping strategies and your emotion-focused coping strategies.
- Which list is longer?
- Does it tell you anything about how you manage stress in general?
Consider the degree of control you perceive in different stressful situations.
- How does the degree of perceived control relate to coping strategies you employ?
- Would it be healthier for you to use other coping strategies more?
- Emotion-focused coping?
- Problem-focused coping?