Coping Strategies Against Basic Anxiety

How people experience and view interactions with others is subjective and shapes personality. In childhood, it is important for an individual to feel safe. How safe a child is, is dependent on how the parents or guardians treat it. So long as a child feels it is truly secure and loved, it can survive a traumatic event. When a child doesn’t recognize its parent as being loving, but instead perceives them as being indifferent it experiences the Basic Evil. The basic evil is experienced by most children, because it is a result of their perception of their parents affection towards them. For the same reason it doesn’t have to happen to all children. If the child always observes its parents to be loving toward it, it should not

It can be repressed because of feelings of guilt, helplessness, fear and the need for love. Consequently the process of repressing the basic hostility can cause the basic anxiety. Discerning its environment to be lacking in security, the child experiencing basic anxiety will feel isolated and weak. To cope with this there are three strategies: compliance, aggressiveness and detachment. Coping strategies defend against the basic anxiety and can vary in intensity. A compliant attitude can be expressed as a child going out of their way to be helpful, an aggressive attitude would be communicated by annoyance and detached attitude could be conveyed through disengagement. When a single coping strategy is used religiously it becomes a neurotic need. A neurotic need is successful at repressing hostility and preventing anxiety, for a child. Once adulthood is reached though, it will prevent the individual's needs from being met. Using all three strategies signifies a healthy individual. How the strategies are used affect how the Self is viewed; four different views are the: Real Self, Actual Self, Despised Real Self, and the Idealised self. The real self is who a person can become if they realize their actual self, who they really are. The idealised self is often who a person thinks they should be, and the despised real self is who they think they actually

I actually agree with this a lot. During high school I definitely started over using detachment, I avoided talking to people, I spent all my free time in my room, all I wanted was to need only myself. My sole goal was to find an associate's degree that would supply me with enough money that I could move out and be by myself. Though that has changed since I have started at Montgomery College I still do not go out of my way to talk about myself. I also have a difficult time spending all my time around people, especially if they talk about their feelings often. Talking about feelings some is alright, but after a certain point I stop wanting to be sympathetic. Detachment was my neurotic need, though I still use it more than I should, I have started to also use the other coping strategies. Aggression is the strategy I am most successful at using healthily. I consider myself to be pragmatic, I believe in good and bad, that life can be easy and hard. Unlike detachment, I also behave with some of the mannerisms of someone who scored high or low with aggression might have. I am competitive and enjoy outsmarting others. Also, I can be incredibly shy, and overly sensitive about hurting