Making the step to meet with someone for therapy can be a difficult one and is a very normal challenge to overcome. However, the potential gains and benefits from meeting with a therapist can be profound if a person finds the right therapist for them. One of the most helpful aspects of therapy is that it can help with challenging, shifting, or even changing a person’s normal pull toward habits of avoidance. The habits of avoidance can also cause someone to not seek out help as a result of very normal, but intense, feelings of anxiety, fear, or panic about the idea.
The American Psychological Association (2023) defines habits of avoidance as “the practice or an instance of keeping away from particular situations, environments, individuals, or things because of either (a) the anticipated negative consequence of such an encounter or (b) anxious or painful feelings associated with them.” The American Psychological Association (2023) further defines the term avoidance coping as: “any strategy for managing a stressful situation in which a person does not address the problem directly but instead disengages from the situation and averts attention from it. In other words, the individual turns away from the processing of threatening information. Examples of avoidance coping include escapism, wishful thinking, self-isolation, undue emotional restraint, and using drugs or alcohol. While generally viewed more unfavorably than the converse approach coping, avoidant strategies may provide some benefit by reducing stress and preventing anxiety from becoming overwhelming.” All of us, to one degree or another, have habits of avoidance. Avoidance is not a bad thing per se, however, the habit can cost a person in the long-run and typically serves only to increase intense feelings of pain or distress which can compound over time. A metaphor about avoidance that is commonly used in the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy tradition is that avoidance is like feeding a tiger (Hayes, 2005). Within this metaphor a person who continuously feeds the baby tiger (representing avoidance coping strategies) finds that eventually it becomes an angry and large grown-up tiger that eats him (representing the long-term costs of avoidance strategies). This metaphor signifies accurately the necessity of addressing not only avoidance coping strategies, but also the underlying feelings that tend to only compound in intensity over time. In other words (and using a different metaphor), the onion can continue to create layers unless we begin to address and peel back some of the layers. Seeking therapy sooner (rather than later) to address these challenges can be helpful to begin to take steps and movements towards a new or renewed life direction. References American Psychological Association. (2023). APA Dictionary of Psychology. https://dictionary.apa.org/avoidance American Psychological Association. (2023). APA Dictionary of Psychology. https://dictionary.apa.org/avoidace-coping Hayes, S (2005) Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life. New Harbinger Publications.
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AuthorCorbin Henningsen, LCSW is a licensed psychotherapist in the Oklahoma City and Edmond, OK areas. He enjoys helping people who struggle with depression, anxiety, and traumatic memories. He has worked as a therapist since 2016 and has operated a robust and growing private practice since 2020. He loves to help his clients through a down-to-earth approach that helps them make sense of their internal pain while taking reasonable steps toward values, meaning, and purpose. Archives
June 2024
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