Experiential Avoidance Disorder: When Suffering Is Scary
Do you know what experiential avoidance disorder consists of? Discover if suffering is really causing you havoc and how to deal with it through psychological methods.
Suffering is part of human existence. We can’t help it. It is present throughout our lives in different forms, as well as love, death, sadness or hate. However, not all people are able to accept this reality. There are those who desperately fight to mitigate the suffering they feel, those who run to try to prevent it from reaching them, and those who deny it despite experiencing it. In some way, their intention is to escape the experience of suffering, what they do not know is that precisely their ways of acting can cause the opposite: an increase in their suffering in the long term. These are people who may be experiencing the experiential avoidance disorder (EED) Let’s dig deeper.
He experiential avoidance disorder It has its origin in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), a therapeutic model that rejects traditional diagnostic classification systems because it considers behavior and its function in the context as the only elements of analysis and action. Thus, the conception of psychopathology from ACT corresponds to experiential avoidance disorder. The TEE is an inflexible behavioral pattern, that is, they are behaviors that are implemented characterized by great rigidity and with one objective: to avoid suffering at all costs and at all levels.
This involves not only the avoidance of discomfort generated by thoughts and emotions, but also attempts to control the situations that may cause it. At first, the avoidance rule seems to work because in the short term it relieves discomfort, but in the long run it does not allow us to feel good. Thus, this way of acting is very far from solving and alleviating suffering, which is why it becomes the problem.
Therefore, the experiential avoidance disorder It is present when a person is unwilling to contact the abusive private experiences they experience (whether sensations, states, thoughts, or behavioral predispositions) and attempts to alter them or avoid and escape them.
Now, it is important to clarify that this is a normal response, we all carry it out in some way. The problem is found when rigidity appears, which manifests itself in thinking like “I have to be well to be able to do…”, “feeling negative emotions or discomfort is terrible”, “I can’t stand being bad, I want this to end now”, “I need to feel happy to study, go back to work or…”that is, when thoughts lead to the belief that it is necessary control discomfort quickly, easily and of course effective to feel good. Which leads to a momentary relief, to patching up the emotions, but to the return of suffering with greater force and a limitation of day-to-day life.
Avoidance of discomfort
Now, why this persistent interest in fleeing from discomfort? What is behind this type of behavior? Although the psychological inflexibility It is one of the determining aspects, as is the context in which we find ourselves and the messages that surround us daily.
Psychological inflexibility because it implies the idea of “feel good to live well” and as a consequence the avoidance or control of discomfort because “If I feel bad, I won’t be able to live well”. Or what is the same is the non-acceptance of how one feels when one feels unwell and a continuous effort to fight against it. Which leads to an increase in suffering and an impoverishment of reinforcers, rewards and attitudes and activities that produce well-being.
The current context because the tyranny of happiness predominates in it, the one that demands that we be happy always and at all costs and that marks it as our only goal in life. And it also influences the discomfort to be seen as something abnormal, negative and inappropriate. The consequences of this are a large number of people immersed in the search to feel good in order to live well, the rejection of suffering and a predominantly hedonistic style that distances them from their values.
Treatment of experiential avoidance disorder
He treatment of experiential avoidance disorder It implies first of all the acceptance that suffering is part of life. Now, this does not imply that we must suffer for the sake of suffering, but rather being aware that simply by being alive we can suffer.
It is essential to be willing to embrace our emotions and feelings, even though they are not pleasant. Well, it is true that experiencing anxiety is not pleasant, nor is feeling sadness, but experiencing it is not bad in itself, just unappetizing and unpleasant.
On the other hand, it is convenient to clarify what our personal values and goals are. Because if we are aware of them, we will know where to go, despite how we feel. That is, what we feel does not have to limit us, we have to accept it, but not be distracted by them or with a fight to exterminate them. In the end, emotions are there, in our daily lives, it is impossible for us to get rid of them, but if we know what we want, it will be much easier to act according to it than towards immediate suffering. Maybe the key is in “live well to feel good” and not the opposite.
