Excerpted from Wikipedia
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_psychological
Date: 11-Nov-2012
In psychology, stress is a feeling of strain and pressure. Symptoms may include a sense of being overwhelmed, feelings of anxiety, overall irritability, insecurity, nervousness, social withdrawal, loss of appetite, depression, panic attacks, exhaustion, high or low blood pressure, skin eruptions or rashes, insomnia, lack of sexual desire (sexual dysfunction), migraine, gastrointestinal difficulties (constipation or diarrhea), and for women, menstrual symptoms. It may also cause more serious conditions such as heart problems.
Small amounts of stress may be desired, beneficial, and even healthy. Positive stress helps improve athletic performance. It also plays factor in motivation, adaptation, and reaction to the environment.
Excessive amounts of stress may lead to many problems in the body that could be harmful. Stress could be something external and related to the environment but also may not be directly created by external events, but instead by the internal perceptions that cause an individual to have anxiety/negative emotions surrounding a situation, such as pressure, discomfort, etc., which they then deem stressful, for example in PTSD.
External factors that by themselves are not threatening or stressful are deemed such for someone experiencing PTSD. Triggers can be stressful, such as when a person reports stress when hearing a song on radio or seeing a type of object that may remind the person of prior threatening events. Humans experience stress, or perceive things as threatening, when they do not believe that their resources for coping with obstacles (stimuli, people, situations, etc.) are enough for what the circumstances demand. When we think the demands being placed on us exceed our ability to cope, we then perceive stress.
Coping mechanisms
Individuals deal with perceived threats, that may be stressful, in various ways. There are different classifications for coping, or defense mechanisms, however they all are variations on the same general idea: There are good/productive and negative/counterproductive ways to handle stress. Because stress is perceived, the following mechanisms do not necessarily deal with the actual situation that is causing an individual stress. However, they may be considered coping mechanisms if they allow the individual to cope better with the negative feelings/anxiety that they are experiencing due to the perceived stressful situation, as opposed to actually fixing the concrete obstacle causing the stress. The following mechanisms are adapted from the DSM-IV Adaptive Functioning Scale, APA, 1994.
Highly Adaptive/Active/Problem-Focused Mechanisms
These skills are what one could call as “facing the problem head on”, or at least dealing with the negative emotions experienced by stress in a constructive manner. (generally adaptive)
• Affiliation – involves dealing with stress by turning to a social network for support, but an individual does not share with others in order to diffuse or avoid the responsibility.
• Humor – the individual steps outside of a situation in order to gain greater perspective, and also to highlight any comic aspect to be found in their stressful circumstances.
• Sublimation – allows an “indirect resolution of conflict with neither adverse consequences nor consequences marked by loss of pleasure. Essentially, this mechanism allows channeling of troubling emotions or impulses into an outlet that is socially acceptable.
• Positive Reappraisal – redirects thoughts(cognitive energy) to good things that are either occurring or have not occurred. This can lead to personal growth, self-reflection, and awareness of the power/benefits of one’s efforts.
Other adaptive coping mechanisms include anticipation, altruism, and self-observation.
Mental Inhibition/Disavowal Mechanisms
These mechanisms cause the individual to have a diminished (or in some cases non-existent) awareness about their anxiety, threatening ideas, fears, etc., that come from being conscious of the perceived threat.
• Displacement – This is when an individual redirects their emotional feelings about one situation to another, less threatening one.
• Repression – Repression occurs when an individual attempts to remove all their thoughts, feelings, and anything related to the upsetting/stressful (perceived) threat out of their awareness in order to be disconnected from the entire situation. When done long enough in a successful way, this is more than just denial.
• Reaction formation – An individual substitutes their feelings or thoughts or behavior with the exact opposite. An attempt to remove any “unacceptable thoughts” from one’s consciousness by replacing them with the exact opposite.
Other inhibition coping mechanisms include undoing, dissociation, denial, projection, and rationalization.