Schema Coping 2: Avoidance

The second in my series of Schema Coping styles. See Overcompensation and Counterattack here.

Life can be full of intense negative emotions. Our human organism is oriented toward threats more than rewards, and thus we have more negative emotions than positive ones. A major motivator for people to come see me is that they seek relief from intense emotions. But for many others, their clever mind has already found a solution: emotional avoidance.

Avoidance is a natural coping response to negative emotions, especially for fear and anxiety. Avoidance-based strategies are extremely helpful to cope with threats:

Thinking of driving after drinking? The worry about crashing the car might stop you from doing this.

Thinking of making an offensive joke? The anxiety about being judged or ostracised may help you remain silent.

Thinking of running with the Bulls in Pamplona? The image of a gory death might make you remain a spectator.

All the above are avoidance-based strategies and are adaptive – they help us live better. We usually don’t think of this type of avoidance as pathological. But what if I change these threats slightly to:

Thinking of driving through a tunnel? The worry about crashing the car might stop you from doing this.

Thinking of making a friendly joke? The anxiety about being judged or ostracised may help you remain silent.

Thinking of patting a poodle? The image of a gory death might make you remain a spectator.

The second bunch of anxiety/avoidance combinations is typically what we would see in anxiety disorders. The avoidance is as much of a part of the disorder as the anxiety itself. This is because avoidance brings relief and relief is addictive. It is devilishly difficult to break the avoidance habit once it begins.

Schema therapy views many long-term life problems as related to inadequately met childhood needs. Needs such as to feel basically safe from harm (from which a Vulnerability Schema may arise) or to feel socially acceptable (from which a Social Isolation Schema may arise). These unmet needs are like wounds, vulnerabilities, Achilles Heels.

Rather than have our wounds be re-exposed, we sometimes learn its easier to avoid triggering them. Thus, the Vulnerability Schema urges us to avoid even mild dangers. The Social Isolation Schema urges us to avoid other people, especially groups.

This addictive avoidance patterns “cures” the negative, schema-driven emotion in the short-term. But in the long-term we have maintained our schema’s integrity. Only facing fears, trying new things, experiencing different outcomes can change the schema.

If left uncontested, the avoidant coping pattern will continue shrinking our comfort zone into an ever-smaller more suffocating sphere. It is not much of a life to be so limited. Depression often follows such a constriction.

Exposure is the antidote to avoidance – stepping out of one’s comfort zone. To do this, you need to see the difference between a bull and a poodle, between a cruel and innocent joke. Some threats are real, and some are contrived based on early experiences, on our Schemas. Understand: “I feel unsafe, but I am not, it is just my Schema talking to me”.