Coping Mechanisms

What are Coping Mechanisms?

Coping mechanisms, or coping strategies, are ways of responding to a stressful demand. They include actions directed at the situation and efforts to manage its emotional impact. Calling an action coping does not establish that it succeeds.

Types of Coping: Problem-Focused and Emotion-Focused

• Problem-focused coping addresses the demand, such as gathering information or making a practical plan.
• Emotion-focused coping addresses the associated feelings.

The functions can overlap: seeking support might provide both practical assistance and reassurance.

Research foundation

Carver, Scheier, and Weintraub’s COPE inventory distinguishes several specific responses, including active coping, planning, acceptance, reinterpretation, and disengagement. It measures a range of responses rather than treating coping as a single good-or-bad trait.

Examples of Coping Strategies

A person facing a difficult deadline might ask for practical help, make a plan, or renegotiate the work. They might also take a short break, use humor, or seek reassurance to manage how the situation feels. Acceptance and reinterpretation are other possibilities, depending on what can be changed.

These responses serve different purposes. A distraction that helps someone recover for a few minutes may become a problem if it repeatedly substitutes for necessary action.

What Makes a Coping Strategy Useful?

Whether a response helps depends on the demand, the person’s options, and the short- and long-term consequences. An inventory of strategies is not a treatment study. Coping also should not be equated with the psychoanalytic concept of an unconscious defense mechanism.