The Self-defeating Coping Strategies Worksheet helps you to see the cost of unsuitable, though understandable, coping strategies. When emotional and physical pain feels more intense and occurs more frequently than it does for other people, the ensuing distress comes on more quickly and feels like an overwhelming tidal wave, and it never seems to end. Then, there seems to exist no way to end this emotional or physical pain. We will call these overwhelming emotions emotional flashbacks.

Emotional flashbacks cause cognitions and feelings of danger, helplessness and hopelessness that characterized the original abandonment during childhood when there was no safe parental figure to go to for comfort and support.

Struggling with emotional flashbacks often leads to unhealthy, unsuccessful coping strategies because childhood trauma survivors don’t know what else to do. Under the onslaught of emotional pain, it is hard to think rationally and find an adequate solution. Therefore, these coping strategies only make problems worse.

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Here is a list of some common coping strategies used by people dealing with this problem. Check the ones that you use to cope with your stressful situations:

• You spend a great deal of time thinking about past pains, mistakes, and problems.

• You get anxious, worrying about possible future pains, mistakes, and problems.

• You isolate yourself from other people to avoid distressing situations.

• You make yourself feel numb with alcohol or drugs.

• You take your feelings out on other people by getting excessively angry at them or trying to control them.

• You engage in potentially dangerous behaviours, such as cutting, hitting, scratching, picking at, burning, or pulling out your hair.

• You engage in unsafe sexual activities, such as having sex with strangers or having frequent unprotected sex.

• You avoid dealing with the causes of your problems, such as an abusive or dysfunctional relationship.

• You use food to punish or control yourself by eating too much, not eating at all, or by throwing up what you do eat.

• You attempt suicide or engage in high-risk activities, like reckless driving or taking dangerous amounts of alcohol and drugs.

• You avoid pleasant activities, such as social events and exercise, maybe because you don’t think that you deserve to feel better.

• You surrender to your pain and resign yourself to living a miserable and unfulfilling life.

The Self-defeating Coping Strategies Worksheet

Note the strategies that you personally use, adding all their costs that you can think of. At the end of the worksheet, add any of your own missing from the sheet.

The Self-defeating Coping Strategies Worksheet Download

Download the worksheet as PDF here:

childhood-trauma-cost-of-self-defeating-coping-strategies-2Herunterladen

Source:

Matthew McKay, Jeffrey C. Wood, and Jeffrey Brantley: The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook.

Walker, Pete: The Tao of Fully Feeling.

The Self-defeating Coping Strategies Worksheet helps you to see the cost of unsuitable, though understandable, coping strategies. When emotional and physical pain feels more intense and occurs more frequently than it does for other people, the ensuing distress comes on more quickly and feels like an overwhelming tidal wave, and it never seems to end. Then, there seems to exist no way to end this emotional or physical pain. We will call these overwhelming emotions emotional flashbacks.

Emotional flashbacks cause cognitions and feelings of danger, helplessness and hopelessness that characterized the original abandonment during childhood when there was no safe parental figure to go to for comfort and support.

Struggling with emotional flashbacks often leads to unhealthy, unsuccessful coping strategies because childhood trauma survivors don’t know what else to do. Under the onslaught of emotional pain, it is hard to think rationally and find an adequate solution. Therefore, these coping strategies only make problems worse.

Here is a list of some common coping strategies used by people dealing with this problem. Check the ones that you use to cope with your stressful situations:

• You spend a great deal of time thinking about past pains, mistakes, and problems.

• 
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

• You get anxious, worrying about possible future pains, mistakes, and problems.

• 
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

• You isolate yourself from other people to avoid distressing situations.

• 
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

• You make yourself feel numb with alcohol or drugs.

• 
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

• You take your feelings out on other people by getting excessively angry at them or trying to control them.

• 
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

• You engage in potentially dangerous behaviours, such as cutting, hitting, scratching, picking at, burning, or pulling out your hair.

• 
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

• You engage in unsafe sexual activities, such as having sex with strangers or having frequent unprotected sex.

• 
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

• You avoid dealing with the causes of your problems, such as an abusive or dysfunctional relationship.

• 
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

• You use food to punish or control yourself by eating too much, not eating at all, or by throwing up what you do eat.

• 
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

• You attempt suicide or engage in high-risk activities, like reckless driving or taking dangerous amounts of alcohol and drugs.

• 
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

• You avoid pleasant activities, such as social events and exercise, maybe because you don’t think that you deserve to feel better.

• 
  
  
  

  
  
  
  

• You surrender to your pain and resign yourself to living a miserable and unfulfilling life.

The Self-defeating Coping Strategies Worksheet

Note the strategies that you personally use, adding all their costs that you can think of. At the end of the worksheet, add any of your own missing from the sheet.

The Self-defeating Coping Strategies Worksheet Download

Download the worksheet as PDF here:

childhood-trauma-cost-of-self-defeating-coping-strategies-2Herunterladen

Source:

Matthew McKay, Jeffrey C. Wood, and Jeffrey Brantley: The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook.

Walker, Pete: The Tao of Fully Feeling.