The Problem with Coping Skills

When people are dealing with a problem, they usually opt for a quick solution, an instant relief that can help them cope up with their anxiety, depression or anger.

Many people follow the pill-popping school of thought, focusing on quick-fix methods and do not look at the long-term implications of the short cuts taken to suppress the mental struggles. But eradicating the problem from the root requires a different approach than these ‘relief’ based techniques.

Many people take the outward symptoms as the actual problem and think that by fixing the symptom they are fixing the underlying problem too, which is entirely false. Example: Popping pain medication in case of a headache is not the right thing to do if the headaches are increasingly common and severe, as it may be due to some other stress-related problem.

Suppressing or window-dressing the problem will only make it worse. A holistic approach is to dig into the root cause of the problem, which initially may require us to feel worse before we can feel any better.