We live in a dynamic world marked by the laws of nature in which nothing remains stable indefinitely, everything is subject to change. In the case of living beings, these changes can alter the balance they maintained with their environment and endanger their existence, so they need to adapt to them in order to continue living. Adaptation is therefore a strategy implemented by nature to preserve life and is a natural remedy to restore the living being-environment balance.
If you are looking for information on adaptation to change according to psychology, this Psychology-Online article will give you everything you need to know about this interesting topic.
Index
- What is adaptation to change?
- The adaptation process according to psychology: skills
- Adaptation to change and flexibility
- Adaptation as a psychological strategy
- Objects of change in psychological adaptation
- Conclusion of psychological adaptation to change
What is adaptation to change?
The human being is part of this dynamic world and, therefore, subject to multiple changes to which he must adapt to maintain his psychophysical stability and his psychological well-being. When the change is caused by an event that alters the psychological state of the person, adaptation is an essential requirement to return to balance and stability. In this ambit, the ability to adapt to changes can be considered as a property of the human mind related to the mechanism of psychological homeostasis, and is understood as "the set of changes occurred in the ego (cognitive and / or behavioral) as a result of changes in the environment in order to maintain emotional stability and balance psychological".
The adaptation mechanism works well when the change produced is not very important, but when a certain event causes a change that negatively affects to any of the fundamental factors that make up our daily life, such as the loss of a loved one, of a physical capacity, of a situation privileged, a valuable asset, professional prestige or social relevance, adaptation presents more difficulty and the negative consequences of non-adaptation are more serious.
How changes affect the mind
It has been shown that if the response to a stressful life event or one with a great emotional charge is not adaptive, there is a risk of suffering a adjustment disorder (AD) that the DSM-V defines as a reaction of maladjustment to a stressful psychosocial situation, developing a set of emotional symptoms or behavioral and whose clinical manifestations may include depressed mood states (feelings of sadness and hopelessness), anxiety, worry, feeling of inability to cope with problems, to plan for the future or to be able to continue in the present situation and a certain degree of deterioration of how the daily routine is carried out (it may involve problematic, risky or reckless).
This reaction can appear in response to a single event, such as a serious traffic accident or the death of a relative, or after experiencing a stressful period of time, such as marital or work problems serious. The person with adjustment disorder has the feeling that the situation they are facing is unsustainable, but unable to envision a solution, she feels trapped, as the difficulties experiment exceed your ability to cope, causing frustration and discomfort generated by behavior that is disproportionate to the severity or intensity of the stressful situation.
Disturbing events and psychological trauma In addition to the above consequences, they also tend to cause the appearance of some personal deficiencies (physical, emotional, economic, sense of life) or generate new needs to satisfy and, in this sense, the adaptation process progresses as the deficiencies, providing satisfaction to new needs and generating exciting projects that restore stability and psychological well-being to the person.
The adaptation process according to psychology: abilities.
Adaptation is the process that allows passing from a state of psychophysical discomfort caused by a change in the circumstances that surround the life of a person, to another state of well-being through an action in any of the vital aspects that have been affected by said change. An important characteristic of this process is that its effects are not immediate and can be delayed over time. The process of adaptation to changes It must meet two basic requirements to be effective:
1. The ability to accept
Accept that the event that occurred has irremediably modified or difficult to recover any of the pillars that supported our daily existence, giving rise to a new harmful or unfavorable situation not desired. This leads us to have to assume the irreversibility of the pre-existing situation and promote adaptation to the new one. Adaptation cannot occur if we constantly keep the memory of the past in our consciousness and let it influence our daily lives. In addition, accepting the situation also implicitly entails other added acceptances:
- Accept that every situation can change, whether for better or for worse, which makes life necessarily have pleasant moments and situations and other unpleasant and suffering moments that are exchanged alternately. Life invites us to enjoy pleasant and pleasant moments, but it also carries the seed of pain and suffering that can germinate at any time.
- Accept that we cannot control a large part of the events that can negatively affect us, either of personal origin (illnesses, physical or intellectual disabilities) or coming from our environment (accidents, natural disasters, interpersonal conflicts, etc.) and most of the time we limit ourselves to choosing between the possibilities that it gives us. offers.
- To accept what we cannot change of us and / or our environment. The new situation may require changes in the way of seeing and relating to our environment, but not all the desired changes will be possible.
2. The search for well-being
The situation created by the disturbing event usually leads to the disappearance of expectations, illusions, desires and future goals that we had, the present is bankrupt and the foreseen future is diluted. This forces us to define a new scenario for the development of our life and to implement the necessary actions so that This scenario can generate a psychophysical state of balance and well-being, eliminating the uncertainty and insecurity that afflicts.
To carry out this mission the fundamental requirement is to have a proactive attitude, because many people affected by a life change have a strong predisposition to think that nothing will change and an unquestionable desire to that everything remains the same, especially if they have difficulty mastering new situations, so they prefer to stay in the past. But reality ends up prevailing and they cannot avoid the consequences: loneliness, lack of economic resources, emotional deficiencies, Professional stagnation, physical or sensory limitations, lack of illusions, fear of the future, etc., all of which make the process extremely difficult. of adaptation.
Adaptation to change and flexibility.
Faced with a vital change, stillness, passivity or conformism are not very vital attitudes, although sometimes they involve a state of well-being. It has been shown that the denial of the event that has caused the change, or the avoidance of its memory, even if it generates short-term well-being, does not eliminate the fact that the event has occurred, so it will continue to exist in our minds, waiting for moments of psychological weakness to emerge and cause suffering again.
In this sense, the predisposition and positive attitude To face the new life situation they must be firm but also flexible. An illustrative example of the way forward is given by systems physics:
“If we fill a cube-shaped container with liquid water, it will easily adapt to the contour of the container and adopt its shape, but before any external force that shakes the container it will lose it, since its liquid nature makes it unstable. If it is in a solid state, such as ice, if it does not have the same shape and size we will not be able to insert it into the container and to adapt it to it we will have to use force and it will break. However, an intermediate state, such as viscous or gelatinous, is perfectly suited to any container of slowly, which allows it to maintain its structure under force, and is more stable than the liquid."
Skills to adapt to change
In the case of the human being, a rigid and uncompromising attitude (solid) Faced with the change in their situation, it will make it difficult or prevent adaptation and will be the cause of psychological imbalance. Likewise, a person who is willing to accept any changes, however minimal, in their vital conditions and circumstances (liquid) will also suffer from instability, since it will be difficult for him to find the right conditions for him and he will run the risk of losing his own identity. The intermediate posture (gelatinous) allows to adapt to new situations that arise in a more leisurely and thoughtful way, avoiding mistakes and maintaining the integrity and continuity of the person's psychological identity. Find out here how to have a positive attitude during difficult times.
The ability to adapt to changes and monitoring
In the field of psychology, a term that follows this approach is that of self-observation or monitoring,defined as: "the person's ability to perceive the keys to the most appropriate behavior in each situation and to act thus according to the demands of the latter, leaving aside their own convictions and internal dispositions ".
This ability allows the person be flexible and develop appropriate behavior to the circumstances. If the person is able to accept his situation and continue to develop the vital aspects of him, he will be responding in a flexible way. However, if he refuses to accept it and becomes entangled in a fight against himself to deny the evidence, he may develop an inflexible pattern that leads him away from the necessary adaptation.
Adaptation as a psychological strategy.
The person and her environment form an inseparable unit, they are correlated, so that the change in one affects necessarily to the other, then the adaptation to the new situation may need a change in us and / or in our environment. Thus, it can be observed that there are people who focus their strategy on the personal, on paying attention to their inner self (meditation, yoga, spirituality, etc.) and only go to the environment to support this intimacy (the advice of trusted people, a spiritual guide, etc.). However, others focus attention on the environment: family, work, travel, friends, participating in social and cultural events, etc.
Faced with this double perspective, it is worth asking:
- ¿I can change myself, that is, change the way of seeing things, the way of interpreting the situation that has occurred and of assessing its consequences and, therefore, changing my attitude and way of acting?
- ¿I can modify the environment so that it favors my expectations in a way that allows me a certain stability, balance and psychological well-being?
- Should I modify both at the same time?
Objects of change in psychological adaptation.
In the case of choosing one person-centered strategy, the question focuses on determining what capacities and / or aptitudes are required to adapt to our environment, what function we can develop and how we should relate to it from now on. One way of dealing with this mission from a psychological point of view is through cognitive restructuring to establish a new way of interpreting things, feeling and acting (includes imagination and creativity to propose changes; the modification of the system of moral values, replacing the inappropriate ones with more adaptive ones; changes in behavior, customs and habits that are detrimental to other more appropriate ones).
If the chosen strategy is act on the environment, person-environment relationships can be grouped into three basic life scenarios: family, social and work, and change can occur in any of the three areas. Depending on which of them is affected, one strategy or another should be adopted, assessing the personal circumstances in each area. Under these scenarios, some examples of strategies could be:
- Family: modification of the type and form in which the relationships with the family members involved are produced (strengthening or decreasing ties depending on the case).
- Social: establishment of new social relationships or modify some aspect of existing ones.
- Labor: look for an activity and an environment that facilitate self-realization while maintaining an adequate personal well-being quota (balanced personal-work relationship).
Keep in mind that modify the environment so that it adapts to our expectations it is usually difficult, since most of the elements that compose it are out of our control, so it is usually more effective to focus on our own self (an old proverb says: “A man cannot change the direction of the wind, but he can change the orientation and direction of the sails.”).
In any case, it is about build a new reality within the daily life taking into account the opportunities that we have within our reach and the personal and environmental limitations that affect us. For this, it is advisable to start by looking for the small opportunities that the environment offers us and that, although they seem irrelevant, can serve as anchor points to lean on to gradually reach more important goals along the way of the adaptation.
In this aspect you need to pay attention to emotions, which are the engine of action, and these can be positive emotions (facilitate change) or negative (prevent or hinder). A control of the negative emotions that are detached from the supervening situation (fear, frustration, sadness, anger, etc.) and an activation of the positive ones (enthusiasm, hope, motivation, joy, etc.) are essential to achieve the adaptation. However, on some occasions the strategy chosen to create a new reality implies assuming a cost (emotional, economic, logistical, etc.) and, in addition, the risk that It can give rise to another situation that is also disturbing, so we should evaluate if the benefits or advantages that this can bring will be higher than the costs that this can bring. behavior.
All actions undertaken in the face of changes will create standard behaviors that will, over time, form patterns of adaptation. Gradually and as these adaptive patterns become a regular part of our daily life (that is, they fulfill their function and adapt us to the new situation) we will start to see things in a more balanced way, allowing us a more flexible response instead of an automatic, single and invariable distressing reaction. Adaptation patterns confer a certain emotional stability and psychological balance, but they also have a great drawback, because if we let ourselves be guided by them in a inflexible and rigid restrict other options for action that are more appropriate to the circumstances of the moment.
Conclusion of the psychological adaptation to change.
The prior process of acceptance and the subsequent process of adaptation to the new situation are usually slow and complicated. The person must assume and accept the impotence and frustration in the face of the supervening situation and be willing to overcome it, because a A situation of prolonged psychological imbalance usually leads the person to a state of hopelessness and lack of enthusiasm for the lifetime. Likewise, you must assume that a satisfactory adaptation to the new situation is possible and, therefore, do not fall into despair or think that this unpleasant situation has no end (it can be observed that the vast majority of people who have suffered the loss of a close person over time changes their mental state and attitude towards life and they end up adapting to the new situation more or less ease).
It is difficult to put aside the memory of the personal situation that you enjoyed and control the impulse to resignation and to let yourself be carried away by the circumstances, but instead of fighting the unpleasant thoughts, emotions and sensations that arise in our consciousness, we must build a new situation, a new vital scenario with an eye toward the future and not the past, that is: forging the present with its back to the misfortune of the past and looking straight ahead with hope and hope.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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