Emotion Regulation Strategies: Avoidance and Approach Strategies

The core conclusion about these two emotion regulation strategies is very clear - there is no absolute good or bad distinction between them. It is not the popular perception of "avoidance = passive escape, approach = active health". The specific effectiveness depends entirely on the applicable scenario, emotional intensity and the user's personal characteristics. Flexible switching is the optimal solution.

Have you ever had a moment like this? When someone steps on your new shoes you just bought while rushing to the subway in the morning, and the other party rolls his eyes. When the company boss scolds you for not making sense of last week's plan, when you get a call from home after work saying that your parents are having another conflict and you need to comment on it. When a series of bad things pile up, do you subconsciously take out your phone and watch funny short videos for half an hour and forget all about it? The former is a typical avoidance strategy - reducing emotional involvement by staying away from emotional triggers, diverting attention, and suppressing emotional expression. The latter is an approach strategy - actively facing emotional triggers, being aware of and accepting emotional experiences, and trying to solve specific problems that trigger emotions.

In the early years, whether it was psychology popularization or successful learning chicken soup, avoidance strategies were nailed to the stigma of "negative". The earliest psychoanalytic school classified avoidance as a repressive defense mechanism, believing that long-term avoidance of negative emotions will push the emotions into the subconscious, and sooner or later they will explode in a more extreme form. Later, when positive psychology became popular, they all advocated "emotional acceptance" and "facing the heart". It seems that if you hide from emotions, you are a coward, and you have to bite the bullet and fight with emotions.

Interestingly, empirical research in the past decade has long overturned this black and white conclusion. A 5-year longitudinal follow-up study conducted by the Department of Psychology at Stanford University in 2015 covering 1,247 adult subjects found that subjects who adopted avoidance strategies immediately when encountering completely uncontrollable stress events (such as sudden serious illness, death of a loved one, unexpected layoff) were 37% less likely to develop PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms one year later than those who forced themselves to "face their emotions". The reason is very simple. People's cognitive bandwidth is extremely limited under acute stress. Forcing yourself to digest negative emotions that are far beyond your ability to bear can easily cause irreversible psychological damage. Avoiding this time is equivalent to putting a cushion for your emotions. It will first pull you back from the edge of collapse before you can deal with it later.

A previous visit I received was typical. The girl is an Internet operator. Her ex-boyfriend PUA, whom she dated for 3 years, still sent messages to harass her from time to time after the breakup. She had read too many articles about "facing the emotional gap head-on". Every time she received a message, she forced herself to review, "Why do I still react to his messages?" Do I still have some unresolved knots in my heart? ”, as a result, I had to suffer from insomnia for half a month, and I was in a trance even at work. Later, the advice I gave her was very simple: block all contact information first, and delete relationship-related posts immediately. If a friend mentions her ex-boyfriend, interrupt immediately. Wait for 3 months before reviewing or accepting. After "avoiding" him for more than two months, she suddenly realized one day that the last time she thought about her ex-boyfriend was a week ago, and her sleep gradually returned to normal.

Of course, this does not mean that avoidance is a panacea. If the problems you encounter are controllable and will reoccur, and you continue to avoid them, it will only turn small problems into big troubles. I had a friend who was married for two years. Her husband was in sales. She often ate alone with female customers. She always thought, "I have to be sensible and not lose my temper." "I know you need it for work, but I just can't accept you eating alone with the opposite sex. Either you bring a colleague with you, or tell me in advance next time, and I will pick you up from get off work." After she talked about it, there was no conflict anymore. Her husband now either brings an assistant when he goes out to meet female clients, or takes the initiative to send positioning information, and her nodules have also shrunk a lot during the review. You see, this kind of problem that can be solved through communication is fine if you avoid it once or twice. If you avoid it for three or five years, you will either end up getting sick or the relationship will break down. Instead, it is better to face the emotions directly from the beginning and put the problem on the table to solve it.

Until now, the academic community has not reached a complete consensus on the applicable boundaries of these two strategies. Most clinical-oriented counselors are more inclined to guide clients to use approach strategies. Their reason is that long-term habitual avoidance will reduce emotional tolerance. In the future, they will not be able to bear the smallest things, and will even slowly shrink their social circle. In order to avoid negative emotions, they will not even try normal social interactions and work. ； Researchers with a cognitive neuroscience orientation are more supportive of the "flexible choice" perspective. Through brain imaging studies, they have found that under acute stress, the activity of the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for rational decision-making, will drop significantly. At this time, insisting on "facing emotions" is essentially using the emotional brain to make decisions, and there is a high probability that impulsive choices will be made. Instead, they first reduce emotional arousal through avoidance strategies, and then decide whether to face it after the prefrontal cortex recovers activity. This is more efficient and less likely to regret.

My current criteria for judging which strategy to use are very simple. First, feel your heartbeat. If your heartbeat exceeds 100 in a resting state, or your chest is so tight that you feel panicked, don’t think about it. Avoid it first. Either go out for a couple of runs, or play a couple of games, or talk to a friend about something useless, and calm down your emotions first. Wait until your mood calms down, and then judge whether the matter can be resolved: If it's a stupid thing like meeting an idiot on the subway and scolding you, just avoid it to the end, turn around and forget about it, and don't waste your time with the idiot. ； If you are scolded for not doing your job well or having conflicts with your family, which can be resolved and will annoy you again and again if not resolved, then use the approach strategy and face the problem head-on.

To be honest, too many people are kidnapped by the standards of "emotional stability" and "emotional maturity". It seems that they cannot hide when encountering problems, but must confront them head-on to adjust their emotions. In fact, emotion regulation tools have always been there to serve people. They are not used to frame you. They are used to hide or welcome. It just makes you feel comfortable. How can there be so many black-and-white standard answers?