When is problem focused coping best

In other words, this approach helps you manage your emotions rather than outside circumstances. Research from suggests people who tend to use emotion-focused coping strategies may be more resilient to stress and enjoy greater overall wellness. Meditation helps you learn to acknowledge and sit with all of your thoughts and experiences, even the difficult ones.

The key goal of meditation? Mindfulness: to recognize thoughts as they come up, accept them, and let them go without stewing over them or judging yourself for having them.

It may feel a little awkward, even unhelpful, at first, and it can take some time before it feels natural. When something goes wrong, you might experience a lot of complicated, conflicting feelings.

They might feel jumbled up inside you, making the thought of sorting them out exhausting. Exhaustion and confusion are valid feelings and can be a good starting point for putting pen to paper. Sometimes, writing down your feelings — no matter how messy or complex they are — is the first step in working through them.

You might eventually find that journaling offers a type of emotional catharsis, as you purge them from your mind and into your journal. Forgiveness can help you let go of hurt and begin healing from it. It can take some time to come to terms with your pain before you feel able to forgive. Practicing forgiveness can benefit your emotional wellness in a number of ways. You might notice:. Looking for tips on practicing forgiveness?

Check out our guide to letting go of the past. When you reframe a situation, you look at it from another perspective. This can help you consider the bigger picture instead of getting stuck on little details, as difficult or unpleasant as those details sometimes are.

Gellman, J. Rick Turner. Contents Search. Problem-Focused Coping. Authors Authors and affiliations Linda Carroll. How to cite. Synonyms Active coping. This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access. Field, T. Stress and coping.

Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Some people will pace around or tell you how worried they are, others will revise, or pester their teachers for clues. Lazarus and Folkman suggested there are two types of coping responses emotion focused and problem focused :.

Emotion-focused coping is a type of stress management that attempts to reduce negative emotional responses associated with stress. Negative emotions such as embarrassment, fear, anxiety, depression, excitement and frustration are reduced or removed by the individual by various methods of coping.

Drug therapy can be seen as emotion focused coping as it focuses on the arousal caused by stress not the problem. Other emotion focused coping techniques include:.

In general people who used emotion-focused strategies such as eating, drinking and taking drugs reported poorer health outcomes. Such strategies are ineffective as they ignore the root cause of the stress. The type of stressor and wether the impact was on physical or psychological health explained the strategies between coping strategies and health outcomes. Emotion-focused coping does not provide a long term solution and may have negative side effects as it delays the person dealing with the problem.

Problem-focused coping targets the causes of stress in practical ways which tackles the problem or stressful situation that is causing stress, consequently directly reducing the stress. In general problem-focused coping is best, as it removes the stressor, so deals with the root cause of the problem, providing a long term solution.

However, it is not always possible to use problem-focused strategies. For example, when someone dies, problem-focused strategies may not be very helpful for the bereaved. Dealing with the feeling of loss requires emotion-focused coping. They work best when the person can control the source of stress e. It is not a productive method for all individuals. For example, not all people are able to take control of a situation, or perceived a situation as controllable.

Billings, A. The role of coping responses and social resources in attenuating the stress of life events. Journal of behavioral Medicine , 4, Cheng, S. Improving mental health in health care practitioners: Randomized controlled trial of a gratitude intervention.