What Are The Best Coping Strategies?
From the above example, you can see (hopefully) that within a range of possible ways to cope with a stressor, some are reasonable and might be expected to work out fairly well (Talking, Walking away for a short while), while others probably won’t work as well to resolve the conflict (Worrying, Yelling, Denying, or Distracting ones self). We can sense that worrying and denying are going to be completely ineffectual – largely because they don’t really address the problem of the angry spouse at all. The distraction strategy may be helpful if it stops worrying but it isn’t going to help your friend address his angry spouse either. If your friend yells at his spouse it is possible he could find himself alone, creating more stress in an already stressful situation. In contrast to these other possible coping strategies, attempting to calmly talk out the problem engages the spouse, takes the problem seriously and decreases the amount of yelling and stress that is happening. Walking away from t
