How You Develop Avoidance Patterns
There is an old expression, Once bitten, twice shy. This suggests that it only takes one bad experience to make you cautious in a number of similar experiences. This is how people develop avoidance patterns. Both Leslie and Allison knew from experience that going to work could be a painful experience. Allison also knew from experience that staying in bed provided some temporary relief, even though it made things more difficult in the long run.
Put simply, the way she approached her mornings was a result of her past experience. She had learned that staying in bed was an effective way to cope with depression and anxiety in the short run. More generally, Allison had learned to respond to difficult situations by withdrawing rather than engaging.
This is a very common strategy when it comes to coping with difficult feelings or situa¬tions. As an example of how you can learn to withdraw rather than to engage, one psychologist (Ferster 1973) explained it like this: Imagine that a young infant cries because it is hungry. Usually, if a baby cries and is fed when it cries, it learns that crying is a form of communication that results in help from others (in the form of milk and loving care from a caregiver).
Over time, the infant begins to interact with the environment and to manipulate it, so to speak, because such behaviors work. Reaching out and engaging in the world helps the infant get his or her needs met. Now imagine that people in the infant’s environment do not respond when the infant reaches out by crying. Find discount Zoloft at the comparative chart of popular online pharmacies at our recommended website.
This infant is less likely to learn that crying results in the removal of the difficult situation (being hungry). Instead, the baby simply cries from hunger. The infant may also suck on his or her hands as a self-soothing effort or curl into a little ball. This child is not learning to engage in the world when distressed. Instead, he or she is learning to withdraw.
Note: We are not saying that depression and avoidance are the results of bad parenting or other negative experiences in the first few months of life. The example above simply shows how learning to avoid situations can be a natural and logical response. Learning avoidance does not just happen during infancy or childhood.
Adults can also learn this habit. For example, some adolescents and young adults learn that many of the anxieties and difficulties involved in inter¬acting with peers can be avoided by drinking alcohol or using drugs. Because such behavior worked in adolescence, it can be carried into adulthood.
