When a character suffers emotional pain, the brain’s response is to stop the discomfort, and often this results in a coping mechanism being deployed. Whether it’s an automatic response or a learned go-to strategy, a mechanism helps them cope with the stress of the moment or escape the hurt of it.
But if the character develops an unhealthy reliance on that mechanism, problems will arise. Long-term, certain coping behaviors will impair their connections with others, their ability to achieve goals and dreams, and their resiliency in handling life’s pressures.
At some point, they must have an Aha! moment where they realize their coping method is holding them back and they need to seek other ways to deal with stress. Namely, they’ll have to adopt healthier mechanisms that enable them to manage difficulties and ultimately have a happier future.
To help you write your character’s growth (or regression) journey, we’ve created The Coping Mechanism Thesaurus, which contains a range of coping methods. The one we’re highlighting today can be damaging, and we hope this partial entry will help you show your character’s struggle in a way readers can relate to.
Intellectualization
DEFINITION
Focusing on logic and reasoning to sidestep the pain of processing difficult emotions.
WHAT IT MAY LOOK LIKE
Avoiding grief by listing the way the person who passed is better off
Focusing on planning a funeral to avoid dealing with the experience of loss
Rigidly reciting facts to shut out conversation that might touch on a painful why beneath the surface
Following protocol, no matter what the situation is
Thinking about personal problems in an abstract or clinical way
Overanalyzing problems and overthinking
BASIC HUMAN NEEDS IT COULD COMPROMISE
Esteem and Recognition: Being unable to accept constructive criticism or handle uncomfortable truths about themselves will stymie the character’s growth, preventing self-confidence and esteem.
Love and Connection: Having a barrier in place to experiencing emotion will cause loved ones to feel the character is not emotionally available, limiting closeness.
FALLOUT (AND POSSIBLE TURNING POINTS)
Realizing that most of their relationships are distant or transactional
Wanting to move past certain fears, but being unable to because examining past pain is too difficult
Being called out for a lack of empathy
Being unable to show the compassion and support another needs
Burning out because the false show of always being reliable and stable takes its toll
COMMITMENT TO CHANGE
Making time for other people
Resisting the urge to escape emotional conversations
Making a practice of noticing emotions in the moment and how they feel
Meditation
Practicing mindfulness (paying attention, rather than drifting)
A willingness to examine the past
To help you brainstorm your character’s responses to stress, visit our master list of healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Need More Descriptive Help?
While this thesaurus is still being developed and expanded, the rest of our descriptive collection (18 unique thesauri and growing) is accessible through the One Stop for Writers THESAURUS database.
If you like, swing by and check out the video walkthrough for this site, then give our Free Trial a spin.
Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.
The doctors at the outpatient program I went to always said I was intellectualizing. But when you know how brains actually work, you understand that people do not have anywhere near as much control over themselves as we think. Knowing that, it’s a lot easier to cut people some slack. It’s also a lot easier to cut yourself some slack. So sometimes intellectualizing is a positive thing. It’s like how Faust sold his soul to gain all knowledge, and all that knowledge showed him that love is the most important thing.
This is a fabulous resource! I have a protagonist who is hiding because he believes he caused his parents’ deaths. So, he has mastered his emotions to focus on others and intervene effectively (he is gifted and talented, earning a doctorate by age eighteen). His successes with teams in distress are acclaimed, but when a woman invites him on a date, he basically loses it as he tries to dissuade her. She exposes his dysfunction and asks him to seek help.
This resource may open more coping skills than I have him doing already.
That is terrific to hear–very glad you found this helpful. I love it when I read something and it gives me further ideas on how to go deeper or fix a story problem!
This is really great, thanks!
So glad it helps!