ASSESSMENT: Avoidant Coping Questionnaire

Evading is a maladjusted coping mechanism which forms as holing up, procrastinating and apparent irresponsible behavior. People may think that a person who is Evasive is lazy . A better description, however, is that the person is anxious. This means that the person who relies on Evading is dealing with emotionally threatening possibilities. Evading may be driven by a Failure Schema which suggests that no matter what we do, or how hard we try, we will still fail. Beneath this schema possibly lies a Defectiveness Schema suggesting that there is something innately wrong with us. Evading seriously limits the scope of our functioning. We withdraw from the world too much. There is a distinction between not being attracted to things that donít appeal to your personality and evading. The person who practices evading will avoid things he or she really needs and wants. Facing what we feel and think without being judgmental initiates a very necessary attitude adjustment that helps chronic Evading. Evading tears at our mental health by making what we dread seem more ominous and worse than it is. Chronic evading is often the cause of feeling chronically overwhelmed. The more we evade the more we thing we have to evade. The cycle needs to be interrupted. The practice of mindfulness and the Radical Acceptance of our emotional experience interrupt the mental processes that drive evasive behavior. Accepting ourselves transforms our world.

Anesthetizing is an avoidant coping mode which seeks to dismiss dreaded thoughts and emotional discomfort by replacing them with pleasure. The intentions are to sooth emotional pain and promote the sense of well-being. Unfortunately chronic emotional pain can lead one to habitually anesthetize discomfort. The self-soothing can become addictive, manifesting in various ways. Chronic smoking, overeating, compulsive gambling or shopping, risk taking, alcohol and chemical abuse and sexual addiction are all forms of this maladjusted coping mode. The intention to promote pleasure and well-being becomes its opposite--a source of suffering. The problem with all avoidant coping modes is that they aggravate the underlying fear and dread. The more we avoid our painful feelings with habitual self-soothing the more we need to anesthetize.

The practice of mindfulness and Radical Acceptance of our emotional experience provides an important emotional shift that returns a critical degree of choice to us. Radical Acceptance of our thoughts and emotions can reduce the need for avoidant coping, providing the critical option to achieve the same ends in an advantageous manner.

Distraction is an avoidant coping mode that diverts our attention away from dreaded feelings and concerns by engaging us in other activities and undertakings. Distraction is categorically avoidant because it actually attempts to supplant one thing for the other. It is as if working hard or having an affair will make problems in our personal life nonexistent. When a person practices Distraction he or she embraces a diversion as if it were an all inclusive reality. In the “spell” of the diversion-reality, other things don’t exist. While climbing Mount Everest or crossing the Pacific in a sailboat, for example, all personal problems might vanish for good. This is the fantasy of those who practice Distraction. The problems however do not vanish. The dreaded emotions and thoughts merely grow stronger and greater distraction seems necessary.

Mindfulness and Radical Acceptance of our emotions and thoughts provide a viable alternative that can reconcile us with Existence. We can accept the pain and misfortunes that leave us feeling hopelessly inadequate. Gratefully, feelings are not always facts.