Stress and Coping: v. 1 (Stress and Coping Series)

However, studies have shown that most people use both problem-focused and emotion-focused coping when dealing with stressful events and that a particular action can often reflect either strategy Lazarus, Not only is disentangling the nature and outcomes of each strategy difficult, but some actions are used both to solve the problem and regulate emotion, and some actions, such as seeking social support, do not clearly reflect either type of strategy. Similar problems rise with the distinction between approach vs. For example, help-seeking behaviors both orient the person away from the stressor avoidant and toward outside support approach.

Because help-seeking is positive to some extent, it could be classified as an approach behavior, yet the action itself avoids the stressor. After reviewing and critiquing the literature, Skinner et al. This taxonomy is useful for considering the nature of self-compassion as a coping strategy. Positive cognitive restructuring involves changing one's view of a stressful situation in order to see it in a more positive light.

Cognitive restructuring includes lower order actions such as being optimistic, engaging in positive thinking, and playing down negative consequences. In some taxonomies, it has often been couched within accommodative or secondary control strategies to be discussed later. Self-compassion involves a certain degree of positive restructuring as people who are high in self-compassion construe negative events in less dire terms than people low in self-compassion.

After receiving a dissatisfying midterm grade, more self-compassionate students reported using the coping strategies of acceptance and positive reinterpretation to cope with the failure. In a study by Leary et al. Each time, participants described a recent negative event, rated how bad it was, and reported their thoughts and feelings about the event.

Given the link between self-compassion and well-being, efforts have been made to lead research participants to use a self-compassionate mindset in thinking about their problems. Although only a handful of studies have looked at self-compassion inductions and therapeutic interventions, all have focused on helping people cognitively restructure their thoughts in a self-compassionate direction.

In one laboratory experiment, Leary et al. In essence, this experimental manipulation focused on a cognitive reframing of the situation. The self-compassion induction led participants to take greater responsibility for the event yet to experience less negative affect and to report stronger feelings of similarity with other people.

In another laboratory experiment, Adams and Leary studied the effects of a very brief self-compassion induction on eating among women who scored high in eating guilt. After female participants were directed to eat a doughnut a food that women high in eating guilt regard as taboo , the researcher led some participants to think about overeating in a self-compassionate manner. Highly restrictive eaters who were given the self-compassion induction were less distressed and subsequently ate less in a follow-up taste test compared to restrictive eaters who did not receive the self-compassion induction.

In a short-term intervention technique, Neff, Kirkpatrick, and Rude used a Gestalt two-chair technique that lowers feelings of self-criticism and helps people show themselves more compassion Greenberg, ; Safran, The technique begins with the participant thinking about a time in which he or she was particularly self-critical. As levels of self-compassion increased throughout the month, the participants criticized themselves less and experienced less depression, rumination, thought suppression, and anxiety.

Gilbert and Procter developed a group-based therapy intervention called compassionate mind training CMT that relies on cognitive restructuring to teach self-critical clients to develop the skills to be more self-compassionate. CMT involves 12 2-hour sessions in which participants are taught about the qualities of self-compassion, encouraged to explore their fears about being too self-compassionate, and asked to reflect on their tendencies to be self-critical in a nonjudgmental way.

Results showed that CMT resulted in a significant decrease in depression, feelings of inferiority, submissive behavior, shame, and self-attacking tendencies. This research showed the most long-lasting effects of teaching people to be more self-compassionate. Each of these intervention techniques focused primarily on positive cognitive restructuring to help participants view their situation with greater self-directed compassion. As the studies show, there are clear benefits to applying cognitive restructuring within a self-compassion induction.

Merely telling people what it means to be self-compassionate may help them show more self-compassion in the future, but creating a self-compassionate mindset that is automatic will likely require a stronger and more involved self-compassion intervention. Further research is needed to assess the degree to which these effects continue after treatment has ended. Additionally, studies have yet to identify the specific length of treatment needed in order to have long-lasting effects.

The coping category of problem-solving, which resembles Lazarus and Folkman's problem-focused coping strategy, encompasses actions such as planning, strategizing, and applying effort that aim to correct the situation rather than passively allowing the stressor to continue Skinner et al. Thus, problem-focused coping involves fixing the problem at hand.

However, when the negative event cannot be fixed or changed, adopting a problem-solving strategy can be maladaptive because the person may continually try to correct something that cannot be fixed. For example, older adults encounter a host of unchangeable problems as they age, for which problem-focused coping may not be effective. Research connecting self-compassion to problem-solving coping strategies is mixed. These findings suggest that self-compassionate people may be more likely to actively engage with the environment rather than to be passive observers. The association with personal initiative supports the suggestion that self-compassion is related to taking responsibility for oneself and for attaining one's goals.

In educational psychology, researchers have distinguished between mastery-based and performance-based learning goals Dweck, Mastery-based goals are related to intrinsic motivation for a genuine understanding of the material, whereas performance-based goals focus on evaluations of success and failure and are motivated by a desire to enhance one's self-worth or public image. Consistent with the notion that self-compassionate people are motivated to do things that help themselves, self-compassion is positively correlated with mastery-based goals and negatively associated with performance-based goals Neff et al.

To the extent that people high in self-compassion are more intrinsically motivated, they should be more motivated to continue to learn after receiving negative feedback than people who are low in self-compassion. A study by Neff et al. Taken together, these findings provide support for self-compassion as a problem-solving strategy, but other results suggest otherwise.

For example, a second study by Neff et al. Self-compassion did not correlate significantly with the tendency to use any of the problem-focused strategies including active coping, planning, suppression of competing activities, restraint coping, and seeking instrumental support. Thus, research on the relationship between self-compassion and problem-solving coping has yielded mixed results.

Self-compassion is related to variables that reflect active and assertive approaches to problems, yet when tested directly, self-compassion has shown no significant relationship with problem-solving coping techniques. Perhaps the relationship between self-compassion and problem-solving coping depends on whether people perceive that they have control in the situation. Self-compassionate people may be likely to engage in problem-solving techniques only when they perceive that the problem can be fixed by taking action.

The third coping category encompasses a broad array of tactics that involve seeking help, advice, comfort, and support from parents, friends, professionals, spiritual figures, and others. For example, someone could seek support as either a problem-focused or emotion-focused strategy. Although one might expect that people who desire to treat themselves caringly might turn to other people for support at times, available evidence suggests that self-compassion is not related to seeking instrumental support a problem-solving tactic discussed earlier or emotional support from other people Neff et al.

Additionally, following a negative event, self-compassionate individuals were no more likely to seek the company of other people Leary et al. Although these findings suggest that self-compassion is not related to seeking support from other people, the data are admittedly thin on this question. Whether they seek support more than those who are low in self-compassion, people who are high in self-compassion may benefit from the indirect, implied support provided by the realization that other people share whatever problems they may have.

As noted, a primary component of self-compassion involves recognition of one's common humanity. Thus, self-compassion may allow people to derive indirect social support from the knowledge that they are in the same boat as other people. Although self-compassion involves a heightened recognition of one's connection to other people, self-compassionate individuals are not necessarily more likely to seek support from others in times of need, and further research is needed to understand how self-compassion relates to people's perceptions of their connections with other people and the broader social world.

Distraction involves using behaviors such as watching television, exercising, reading, or engaging in other pleasurable activities to distract oneself from the stressful event. Distraction is a passive coping strategy in that the person copes without directly confronting the situation or trying to solve the problem.

Distraction is sometimes conceptualized as an accommodative or secondary control coping tactic Connor-Smith et al. For children attempting to cope with pain, for example, accommodative coping strategies help the child not to think about the pain rather than reducing the pain itself. In this situation, using a distraction technique is an accommodative strategy Walker et al. When confronted with a situation in which a stressor is unavoidable, people may distract themselves from the situation, a secondary control strategy.

Whether distraction is adaptive and effective depends on the situation. To the extent that the situation cannot be changed, distraction may be helpful. For example, accommodative coping strategies appear to be more beneficial for people after the age of 70, possibly because fewer stressors are under people's control after that age Brandstadter et al. One of the ways in which people may take their mind off of pain, worries, or other difficult circumstances that are associated with aging is by using distraction techniques.

With the exception of one study that found that people high in self-compassion were no more likely to try to do things to take their mind off of negative events Leary et al. One question to be addressed is whether distraction is more adaptive in the face of unchangeable stressors. Perhaps self-compassionate people are more likely to use distraction primarily when conditions cannot be changed.

The final coping category identified by Skinner et al. This strategy involves disengaging cognitively or behaviorally from the stressful experience. Traditionally, researchers have viewed avoidant coping strategies as a variety of emotion-focused strategy in which people avoid the stressor to manage their emotions Lazarus, However, research has distinguished two types of emotion-focused strategies—one involving disengagement, and the other involving efforts to explore and understand one's emotions Zeidner, Avoidant coping strategies are often viewed as maladaptive because they are related negatively to psychological well-being Carver et al.

Research supports a negative relationship between self-compassion and avoidance-oriented coping strategies. In a study by Neff et al. They were told to focus on their reactions to their poor test performance and complete the COPE scale Carver et al, Self-compassion was negatively related to two of the three avoidance-oriented coping strategies, specifically denial and mental disengagement. The mindfulness component of self-compassion involves taking a balanced perspective in which one acknowledges and tries to understand one's emotions without either repressing them or becoming overwhelmed.

Thus, as a coping strategy, self-compassion explicitly involves not running away from one's negative emotions but rather striving to understand one's reactions with equanimity Neff, b. Viewed in one light, the reactions to highly self-compassionate people could also be interpreted as indifference, a refusal to accept responsibility an avoidant or escape-oriented response , or as passivity which could also be viewed as avoidance.

However, self-criticism is probably more likely than self-compassion to lead people to avoid dealing with problems and to repress painful feelings Horney, ; Reich, Research clearly shows that people who are self-compassionate are more likely to accept responsibility for their mistakes and failures than those who are less self-compassionate Leary et al. Treating themselves kindly despite their problems and failures allows people who are high in self-compassion to accept responsibility and to move on rather than engaging in defensiveness or denial.

Given that self-compassionate people are less judgmental and more likely to forgive their faults and inadequacies, they have less of a need to deny their failures and shortcomings. In fact, people who are high in self-compassion take greater responsibility for their failures and make needed changes while maintaining a loving, caring, and patient approach toward themselves. Being compassionate toward oneself instills a protective environment where it is safe to acknowledge one's inadequacies and seek ways to improve.

Self-compassion implies wanting the best for oneself, and this desire naturally leads to positive self-changes. In addition to the five coping categories that Skinner et al. As a coping strategy, rumination involves repetitively focusing on a stressor in a pessimistic and negative manner and has been shown to be associated with dysphoria and other psychological difficulties Nolen-Hoeksema, Likewise, self-compassion is probably negatively correlated with self-pity, which should be lowered by recognition of one's common humanity.

Self-compassion should encourage people to accept negative life events as part of the common human experience rather than feel sorry for themselves. In addition, the mindfulness aspect of self-compassion should help prevent people from becoming overwhelmed with self-directed negativity. Coping is typically viewed as a response to existing stressors or negative events. However, people sometimes begin to cope in preparation for anticipated negative events.

Although relatively unexplored, proactive coping holds promise for understanding psychological variables that lead people to take care of themselves before problems arise. To the extent that self-compassion involves a desire to do what's best for oneself and to minimize one's future suffering, self-compassion may be related to proactive coping. When faced with the threat of future negative events, self-compassionate people may be more likely to deal with them proactively. One promising area of proactive coping research involves how people prepare for and cope with aging.

The many changes, losses, and declines that accompany aging can be considered a multitude of potential future stressors. Kahana and Kahana proposed a proactivity-based model of successful aging in which they suggested that people's internal resources can foster proactive adaptations, including traditional preventative adaptations such as exercise , corrective adaptations such as marshalling social support , and emergent adaptations such as self-improvement.

If people who are high in self-compassion are more likely to cope proactively, they may fare better as they age. Among other things, a proactive approach to life involves taking care of one's health through exercise and diet. However, such behaviors are not unequivocally healthy when they are motivated by judgment and criticism or by a desire to be accepted by other people.

A few studies have looked at the connection between self-compassion and behaving in healthy ways. For example, women who were high in self-compassion were more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated to exercise, and their reasons for exercising were not related to ego concerns Magnus, Typically highly restrictive eaters overeat after they break their diet, but in this study, highly restrictive eaters who were led to be self-compassionate did not exhibit dysregulated eating. Although little research has evaluated the relationship between self-compassion and proactive coping, self-compassion could play an important role in this process.

People who cope proactively begin to prepare themselves in advance for possible distressing situations in the future. Therefore, one would presume that when stressors arise, self-compassionate people are more prepared to deal with their effects. The act of proactively coping could also delay the stressor for a longer period of time, such as when exercise prevents physical decline. If self-compassion is related to proactive coping, teaching people to be more self-compassionate should be beneficial no matter people's current life situation.

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Self-compassion may be a valuable coping resource when people experience negative life events. People who are self-compassionate are less likely to catastrophize negative situations, experience anxiety following a stressor, and avoid challenging tasks for fear of failure.

Research suggests that self-compassion can play an important role in the coping process. Most existing research on the relationship between self-compassion and coping suggests that self-compassion involves thinking about stressful situations in ways that enhance coping. In contrast, self-compassion did not relate strongly to problem-solving techniques, suggesting that people who are self-compassionate are not necessarily more likely to try to change their situation than people who are low in self-compassion.

The Vanderbilt Stress and Coping Lab

However, the finding that self-compassion is associated with mastery-based goals qualifies this conclusion. Although the existing evidence does not show differences in the degree to which people who are low vs. Little research has examined the connection between self-compassion and the use of distraction as a coping technique. On one hand, self-compassion may be negatively related to distraction because self-compassion involves being mindfully aware of one's situation and cognitively accepting it.

On the other hand, both distraction and positive cognitive restructuring are accommodative and secondary control strategies. Perhaps treating oneself kindly sometimes requires people to distract themselves from the situation at hand. The final coping strategy, escape-avoidance, shows a negative relationship with self-compassion. We found only a few reports in which the COPE questionnaire was used in the evaluation of this group of patients. Kossakowska [ 23 ] assessed the styles of coping with stress among women at 4—12 weeks postpartum: The following methods were used to find answers to the research questions: Women with symptoms of postpartum depression reported greater satisfaction with support provided by midwives rather than from family members.

Depressive women chose less active ways of coping and they were more likely to use active strategies when they were satisfied with received social support. There are some studies in the literature concerning coping strategies based on different research tools than those we used in the present study. Research by Benedysiuk and Tartas [ 13 ] on a group of 35 persons treated for major depressive disorder compared with 35 healthy subjects showed differences in ways of coping with stress. People suffering from depression in the face of stressful events tended to use both confrontational and evasive coping strategies.

These findings are in line with our results. Monitoring regional hemodynamic changes during verbal tasks checking verbal fluency were performed with the channel near-infrared spectroscopy NIRS. Patients with depression mainly presented emotion-oriented style, while the task-oriented style and avoidance in this group were used significantly less often compared with the control group. Emotions -oriented style positively correlated with the subjective assessment of the severity of depression.

Regional hemodynamic activity was significantly lower in depressive patients compared to the control group in the areas of the prefrontal cortex, and was positively correlated with task-oriented styles of coping. These results suggest that ways of coping with stress can be considered as an important source of information for patients who struggle with depression and specialists who work with them. People with depression more often perceive life events as threatening and difficult to deal with. The reason for such negative assessment of live events may be dysfunctional cognitive schema used by patients with depression [ 10 ].

The depressive symptoms negatively correlate with proactive coping, described as one of the most effective strategies focused on the future and expanding personal resources, including autonomous and individual goal-setting, and their consequent realization [ 24 , 25 ]. Research conducted among immigrants, teachers, retirees, and the elderly [ 26 , 27 ] have shown that depressed mood, everyday life difficulties, somatic complaints, and dysfunctions are not favorable to proactive coping. In addition, people experiencing depressive symptoms are more likely to perceive their jobs and living conditions as stressful [ 26 , 28 ].

In a stressful encounter, low SOC for resourcefulness in people with depression may be responsible for the limited perception of available resources to deal with the problem. This limitation may be responsible for the tendency to use avoidance strategies.

Self-Compassion, Stress, and Coping

Thus far, the dispute is whether the symptoms of depression contribute to choosing less effective ways to deal with stress, or maybe these strategies are used by the patients before the onset of the disease and this way become risk factors for depression. Our study revealed statistically significant differences between the patients and control group in most of the analyzed coping strategies. We found that longer duration of a recurrent depressive disorder was associated with greater differences in coping strategies preferred by patients, but the severity of depressive symptoms was not significantly associated with the set of picked coping mechanisms.

This may suggest an important contribution of personality traits in the selection of ways of coping with stress. Therefore, to solve the above dilemma, parallel studies should be reviewed, in which coping strategies in populations of patients at risk of developing depressive disorder would be assessed before the onset and during the exacerbation and remission of symptoms, but no such reports exist in the current literature. Compared to patients with bipolar disorder, patients with depression received worse results in terms of coping with stress.

In total, 96 subjects with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and 77 subjects with depression were included into the study.

Researchers assessed the severity of depressive symptoms, anxiety, stress, personality traits, ways of coping with stress, social adjustment, level of self-esteem, dysfunctional attitude, and concerns about the critical assessment. Compared to subjects with depression, those with bipolar disorder reported significantly higher level of extraversion, more positive self-esteem, and more adaptive ways of coping, and had lower level of anxiety and lower fear of negative evaluation.

Extraversion positively correlated with high self-esteem and adaptive coping style, and negatively with the level of anxiety and fear of negative assessment. The authors concluded that the differences in the course of the disease and the type of depression are likely to influence the selection of coping strategies by patients. Due to the protective role of extraversion, which promotes choosing more favorable ways of coping, subjects with bipolar disorder manage much better in difficult situations. This preliminary study shows significant differences in the strategies used to cope with stress among subjects with depression compared to healthy subjects.

An important limitation of the presented initial results is difference in the average age between study groups. This research is being continued and selection of respondents is ongoing to create a control group comparable in every aspect required for further analyses.

Patients treated for depressive disorders in stressful situations more often than healthy people use coping strategies based on behavioral disengagement and problem denial, and have more difficulties in positive reinterpretation of stressful events. In the entire population, women and men do not significantly differ in preferred ways of coping with stress.

Self-Compassion, Stress, and Coping

Mood disorders like recurrent depressive disorder or depressive episode may be an important factor contributing to the negative assessment of ability to cope with difficult situations and a greater tendency to perceive stressful events as overwhelming. This study was supported by the funds from the Medical University of Lodz: National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Journal List Med Sci Monit v.

Published online Nov Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Received Sep 12; Accepted Sep This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Abstract Background Coping with stress is defined as all activities undertaken by a human in a stressful situation. Results In contrast with healthy people, patients with depression in stressful situations more often use strategies based on avoidance and denial and have more difficulties in finding positive aspects of stressful events.

Background Stress is most often thought of as something negative and harmful. We generated the following hypotheses: Patients with depression more often use ineffective and avoidance strategies to cope with stress compared to healthy controls,. There is an association between depression severity measured by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale HDRS and particular strategies of coping with stress,. Active coping taking action to try to get rid of or decrease the stressor or its consequences ;.

Seeking social support for emotional reasons seeking for emotional support, sympathy or understanding ;. Suppression of competing activities putting aside other activities not connected to the problem in order to better deal with it ;. Turning to religion as a source of emotional support or signpost to positive reinterpretation and development ;.

Positive reinterpretation and growth growing as a person as a result of the experience, seeing events in a positive light ;. Acceptance accepting situation as something irreversible, trying to get used to it and learn to live with it ;. Mental disengagement avoiding of consequences by turning to other activities like sleep, watching TV ;. The group treated for mood disorders first depressive episode and recurrent depressive disorder received the highest scores in the following ways of coping with stressful situations: Open in a separate window.

Discussion The presented preliminary results show that patients with depression more often use ineffective and avoidance strategies to cope with stress compared to healthy controls. Conclusions Patients treated for depressive disorders in stressful situations more often than healthy people use coping strategies based on behavioral disengagement and problem denial, and have more difficulties in positive reinterpretation of stressful events.

Footnotes Source of support: Kay J, Tasman A. Psychological factors affecting medical condition. Kay J, Tasman A, editors. Personality, stress and health. Childhood physical and sexual abuse in patients with anxiety disorders in a community sample. The long-term impact of the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of children: Stress and coping-major controversy. Heszen-Niejodek I, Ratajczak Z, editors. Man in times of stress. Publisher University of Silesia; Strombek-Milczarek M, Talarowska M. Fundamentals of psychology Handbook for medical students. The relationship between the prefrontal activation during a verbal fluency task and stress-coping style in major depressive disorder: From inflammation to sickness and depression: Unraveling the mystery of health.

How to deal with stress and not get sick. Benedysiuk E, Tartas M. Mechanisms for coping with stress in depression. Ann Acad Med Gedan. Fredrickson B, Joiner T. Positive emotions trigger upward spirals toward emotional well-being. A rating scale for depression. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. Clinical Description and Diagnostic Guidelines. A theoretically based approach. J Pers Soc Psychol. Benchmarking of stress and coping. Laboratory of Psychological Tests; Heim C, Nemeroff CB.