What are Coping Mechanisms and What do They do for People?

Coping mechanisms are the same of stress released techniques. They are way for people to help them manage stress, trauma and painful/difficult emotions. There are many different kinds of life events that can cause a person to use a coping mechanism. It can be positive or negative but a person at some point in their life will experience some kind of psychological stress

A coping mechanism can consist of the behavior, thought and emotions of the person depending on the situation. Not one way to calm a person down or cope with something a person is going through will work for everyone. That’s not how it works. Every person is different so they will have their own way with dealing with there stress. But there does come a point when a coping mechanism is no longer a coping mechanism. What I am talking about is some people will use a defense mechanism as their coping mechanism.

So, what is the difference between coping and defense mechanism. A defense mechanism is an unconscious way of your body dealing with something going on around your environment. Whereas coping mechanism are purposeful because the person knows what’s going on with their body and what is going on around them

When dealing with stress there are 2 main different ways a person might go about it. The first way is a problem-focused method, meaning that they want to deal with the problem head on to try to resolve their stress. The second way is emotion-focused, meaning that a person will focus more on the emotions that were brought up because of the problem that way brought into their life.

At the bottom of the page, I have linked a site called therapyaid.com. It is a page that different types for psychologist and therapists use to get worksheet to use for their clients to use. Not only that but with those worksheets it will also give you ways to cope or help relieve the emotions with different strategies. Remember what might work for you might not work for the person next to you. Everyone has a different way to cope with their stress and feeling but they are unique to you and what makes you human.