STRESS AND COPING: LECTURE NOTE
Dr. D. Dutta Roy
Psychology Research Unit, INDIAN STATISTICAL INSTITUTE
203, B.T. Road, Kolkata- 700 108
E-mail: ddroy@isical.ac.in
Place: Performing art therapy centre,
Rabindra Bharati University
STRESS
Physician Hans Selye was pioneer who defines stress as a non specific response of the body to any demand characterized by the secretion of glucocorticoids. Glucocorticoid (glucose + cortex + steroid) hormone derives from their role in the regulation of the metabolism of glucose, their synthesis in the adrenal cortex, and their steroidal structure. Selye developed concept of the general adaptation syndrome (GAS) to discuss three stages of stress :
Stages
• Alarm: In the first stage of GAS called alarm reaction, the body releases adrenaline and a variety of other psychological mechanisms to combat the stress and to stay in control. This is called fight or flight response. The muscles tense, the heart beats faster, the breathing and perspiration increases, the eyes dilate, the stomach may clench. Believe it or not, this is done by nature to protect you in case something bad happens. Once the cause of the stress is removed, the body will go back to normal.
• A stage of resistance: If the cause for the stress is not removed, GAS goes to its second stage called resistance or adaptation. This is the body’s response to long term protection. It secretes further hormones that increase blood sugar levels to sustain energy and raise blood pressure. The adrenal cortex (outer covering) produces hormones called corticosteroids for this resistance reaction. Overuse by the body's defense mechanism in this phase eventually leads to disease. If this adaptation phase continues for a prolonged period of time without periods of relaxation and rest to counterbalance the stress response, sufferers become prone to fatigue, concentration lapses, irritability and lethargy as the effort to sustain arousal slides into negative stress.
• Exhaustion: The third stage of GAS is called exhaustion. In this stage, the body has run out of its reserve of body energy and immunity. Mental, physical and emotional resources suffer heavily. The body experiences "adrenal exhaustion". The blood sugar levels decrease as the adrenals become depleted, leading to decreased stress tolerance, progressive mental and physical exhaustion, illness and collapse.
Stress and immune systems
• Immune system is the body’s defense against illness because it fights and destroys bacteria, viruses and other foreign substances that may invade our bodies. If this system is impaired, as in the case of prolonged stress, we are more prone to illness and disease. The corticoids and endorphins that are released into our body during the stress response reduce and dampen the activity of our immune system. This is called immunosuppression. Immunosuppression causes cold, allergies, sinuses and several psychophysiological disorders specially at the phase of exhaustion.
Types
Selye (1983) pointed four types of stress as
• Overstress or Hyperstress
• Understress or Hypostress
• Damaging stress (Distress)
• Good stress (Eustress)
PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESSORS
• Broadly, psychological stress is determined by deprivation of needs and conflicts. Maslow proposed need hierarchy model in classification of needs in terms of relative importance of needs over periods. These needs are Physiological, Safety, Social, Self esteem and Self actualization.
• Stress occurs due to four types of conflicts : Double approach, double avoidance, approach and avoidance and double approach and avoidance.
• In job, stress occurs due to role conflicts.
Role Conflicts
• Self-Role Distance: This stress arises out of the conflict between the self-concept and the expectations from the role, as perceived by the role occupant.
• Intra-Role Conflict: Since an individual learns to develop expectations as a result of his socialization and identification with ‘significant’ others, it is quite likely that he sees certain incompatibility between the expectations (functions) of his role. For example, a professor may see incompatibility between the expectations of teaching students and of doing research. These may not be inherently conflicting, but the individual may perceive these as incompatible.
• Role Stagnation: As the teacher grows older, the need for taking up a new role becomes crucial. This problem of role growth becomes acute especially when an individual who has occupied a role for a long time enters another role in which he may feel less secure. However, the new role demands that an individual outgrow the previous one and take charge of the new role effectively. This is bound to produce some stress. In college which are fast expanding, and which do not have any systematic strategy of manpower development, teachers are likely to experience this stress of role stagnation .
• Role Ambiguity: When teacher is not clear about the various expectations that people have from his role the conflict that he faces is called role ambiguity. Role ambiguity may be due to lack of information available to the role occupant, or due to lack of understanding of the ‘cues’ available to him.
• Role Expectation Conflict: When there are conflicting expectations or demands by different role senders (persons having expectations from the role), the role occupant may experience the stress. There may be conflicting from the boss, subordinates, peers or clients.
• Role Overload: When the role occupant feels that there are too many expectations from the ‘significant’ others in his role set, he experiences role overload.
• Role Erosion: A role occupant may feel that the functions which he would like to perform are being performed by some other role.
• Resource Inadequacy: Resource inadequacy stress is experienced when the resources required by the role occupant for performing the role effectively are not available.
• Personal Inadequacy: When a role occupant feels that he is not prepared to undertake the role effectively, he may experience this stress. This role occupant may feel that he does not have enough knowledge, skills, or training, or he/she has not had time to prepare for the assigned new roles without enough preparation or orientation are likely to experience this type of stress.
• Role Isolation: the role occupant may feel that certain roles are psychologically closer to him, while others are a t a much greater distance. The main criterion of distance is the frequency and ease of interaction. When linkages are strong, the role isolation will be low & in the absence of strong linkages the role isolation will be high.
PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS RESPONSE
• Anxiety
– Apprehension of danger
– Inattentiveness
– Forgetting
– Irritability
• Depression
– Loss of hope
– Apathy
– Feeling of meaninglessness
• Burnout
– Emotional exhaustion:
• Tired & fatigued feeling
– Depersonalization
• Negative & Cynical Attitude
– Loss of feeling of personal achievement derived from their job
– Others evaluate them as negatively.
PERSONALITY TYPE
• Type A
• Type B
COPING STRATEGIES
• Appraisal focused: Appraisal-focused strategies occur when the person modifies the way they think, for example: employing denial, or distancing oneself from the problem. People may alter the way they think about a problem by altering their goals and values, such as by seeing the humour in a situation.
• Problem focused: They do this by finding out information on the problem and learning new skills to manage the problem.
• Emotion focused : Emotion-focused strategies involve releasing pent-up emotions, distracting one-self, managing hostile feelings, meditating, using systematic relaxation procedures.
Individual approach in stress management
Enactive mastery experience
• Close your eyes. Think that you are away from the job. You are on the job. Job has no control over you. Do job analysis now.
• Job analysis: Think of main job, their task components and related abilities, temperament, job environment, job network (input-process-output), your specific roles etc.
• Self-analysis: Do your judgment about P-E fit. Assess your specific need and limitation. Make strategy as how can you enhance or control target behaviour. Write target behaviour like to enhance or to control.
• Enacting : Enacting specific role to fulfill target behaviour. Study its outcome.
Vicarious experience
• Write about target temperament, aptitudes, interests to enhance or to control.
• Identify specific expert around you, observe his behaviour.
• If possible, read autobiography of expert person or see the movie etc.
Verbal persuasion
• Give or collect feedback from others about your performance.
Physiological and affective state
• Progressive relaxation
• Music therapy
• Vibroacoustic therapy
• Autogenic training
• Time management
• Meditation or Yoga
Time Management
• Time management refers to a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects and goals. This set encompasses a wide scope of activities, and these include planning, allocating, setting goals, delegation, analysis of time spent, monitoring, organizing, scheduling, and prioritizing. A time management system is a designed combination of processes, tools and techniques.
Autogenic training
• The technique involves the daily practice of sessions that last around 15 minutes, usually in the morning, at lunch time, and in the evening. During each session, the practitioner will repeat a set of visualizations that induce a state of relaxation. Each session can be practiced in a position chosen amongst a set of recommended postures (e.g. lying down, sitting meditation, sitting like a rag doll, etc.). The technique can be used to alleviate many stress-induced psychosomatic disorders.
Progressive relaxation
Vibroacoustic therapy
• Vibroacoustic Therapy (VAT) is performed by transferring amplified sound directly to the human body through loudspeakers or transducers that are embedded in a bed or vibrotactile device.
• The innovative therapy was introduced by Norwegian musician/researcher, Olav Skille, in 1982. VAT utilizes electronically-generated low frequency tones (generally in the 30-120 Hz range), usually mixed with synthesized music, to treat a variety of conditions.
Yoga
Rabindrik therapy
Postulate 1: One can understand own consciousness when he watches it as detached
being.
“ Je ami bhese chale kaler dheue akash tale
ori pane dekhchi ami cheye.
…… o je sachal chabir mato ami nirab kabir mato-
ori pane dekhchi ami cheye.
Ei je ami oi ami noi, apan-majhe apni je roi,
Jai na bhese marandhara beye-
Mukto ami, tripto ami, shanto ami, dipto ami,
ori pane dekhchi ami cheye.”
Postulate 2: Man is the pursuer of completeness.
Following the model of Integral psychology of Sri Aurovindo and Sri Maa,consciousness
has three layers – Murta (outer), Raaga (inner) and Saraswat (inner core). What we
sense through five sensory organs is Murta. Sensory images are attached with emotions
in Raaga layer. When consciousness moves around Murta and Raaga layers, man
experiences feeling of incompleteness.
“ Ami keboli swapan karechi bapan batase-
Tai akashkusum karinu chayan hatashe
Chayar matan milay dharani, kul nahi pay ashar tarani,
Manaspratima bhasia beray akashe”
Postulate 3: Man is the pursuer of newness
Prolonged stay within inner core layer cannot provide variety. He feels incomplete and
wants to come out of it.
“ Tomay natun kare pabo bole harai khane khan”
Translated: I want to lose you for a short while in order to find you new.
Postulate 4: Manage stress by developing insight about layer dynamics within client.
Psychology counselor as facilitator can assist client in developing insight about dynamics
of three layers. He follows three stages: (a) identification of target behaviour to be
changed, (b) exploring layer dynamics related to target behaviour (c) assisting client to
develop insight and (d) termination of counseling. Here is a case study:
A boy of 12 years came with the complaints of difficulty in concentration, forgetting,
and irritability. He spent long hours with text book. He liked Rabindrasangeet.
Therapeautic analysis is :
¬ Layer dynamics:
– Outer layer : Perceiving the book;
– Inner layer : Book is perceived as source of completeness;
– Innercore : Feeling of completeness;
Reason for over learning: He tends to be complete being.
¬
¬ Problem lies on over study due to extrinsic reading motivation
¬ Target of change : Study for intrinsic motivation
PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH
Man uses defense mechanisms to overcome stress. Defenses are unconscious mental processes that the ego uses to resolve conflicts among the four things – instinct (wish or need), reality, important people and conscience. Some of the defenses are:
Fantasy: seeking solace and satisfaction within themselves by creating imaginery lives, friends etc.
Projection: Attributing own unacknowledged feelings to others.
Acting out: Direct expression through action of an unconscious wish or conflict to avoid being conscious of either the idea or the affect that accompanies it. Tantrums, apparently motiveless assaults, child abuse and pleasureless promiscuity are common examples.
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