Coping With Crisis Through Social Supports

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Can avoiding coping with stress help people deal with the stress? Although it may not be as effective as managing the stress or coping with the crisis, some researchers indicate that ignoring the problem temporarily may help some individuals. This may be helpful, according to George Vaillant, psychiatrist, when a person looks at the crisis while linking positively to the people around him/her. Some people devoted much time to constructive altruism, or giving gratifying service to others. Others used humor as an open expression of feelings and thoughts without using negative humor which can hurt others. Some even ignored or pretended that the crisis did not exist, and used this as a temporary way of dealing with it. The crisis was dealt with later; it wasn't forgotten. Some anticipated what would be the impact of that crisis and related impacts on their lives, and used this as a means of seeing how affected they would be if that event occurred.

In a 40-year study of men at Harvard, the men were able to handle stress effectively by using the positive coping and temporary delaying of the problem. The impact on physical health was significant at various ages, and the correlation remained significant even after corrections for smoking, alcohol use, suicide, obesity, and the longevity of parents and grandparents. It is apparent that the use of positive social supports enhances the positive coping while the problem is temporarily not being dealt with directly. Those who totally withdrew and did not cope with the problems at all seldom used other persons to assist them. They had much greater health problems later in life.

Source: Adapted from an article by George Vaillant in The Harvard Medical School Mental Health Letter, Vol. 3, No. 1, July 1986.

Sue Meyers
Family Sociologist

Originally published in September, 1986

College of Human Ecology in cooperation with the University of Minnesota Extension Service

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