When Coping Skills Don’t Work

Coping skills are often taught as quick fixes, but they aren’t magic. If a strategy doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean you failed. It means that skill wasn’t the right match in that moment. It could be the skill didn't match the emotion, the intensity of the emotion, or the environment.

Coping skills, also called emotion regulation skills, work best when they align with the nervous system’s current state. A breathing exercise may help one person but increase distress for another. It's best to practice skills in a safe and low-stress environment before you use them during a crisis. Practice helps build muscle memory so that it's easier to recall when stress is higher. When in a crisis, our nervous system isn't going to perform new skills well - if at all. Experience, timing, environment, and emotional intensity all matter.

Effective support involves experimenting, adjusting, and practicing with guidance. Therapy can help identify which tools work for you and when. Even, if you don't have access to therapy, you can track how well coping skills by:

1. Naming the emotion or what you feel in your body

2. Rate the intensity of the emotion or feeling

3. Use a coping skill

4. Name the emotion or what you feel in your body

5. Rate the intensity

6. Write if this skill worked for that emotion at that intensity

7. Ask "Do I need to do it again, try something else, or did it work?"

If one skill doesn't work, try a different one. There’s no such thing as being “bad” at coping. Sometimes we need to use multiple skills to regulate the nervous system. And that's okay.