Maladaptive Behaviors, Potential Partners

Maladaptive Behaviors

When individuals repeatedly engage in self defeating behavior, hold self defeating beliefs, or experience negative emotions, they are commonly considered to have a behavior or mental disorder. Usually, such thoughts, feelings, or actions serve some function in the person’s life, but for the most part, the patterns are negative or dysfunctional. For instance, a parent may sincerely want a teenager to keep her room clean, but constant screaming and arguing about it may end up damaging the parent child relationship and not achieve a clean room. In fact, our experience is that screaming, yelling, and striking children, especially teenagers, are maladaptive behaviors in that they are ineffective means of attaining desired goals. Similarly, a man may sincerely want to be in an intimate relationship, but his overly enthusiastic behavior could alarm potential partners and keep them from coming close to him. The man’s intent is positive, but his approach is maladaptive; it results in his scaring potential partners away and, consequently, his increased loneliness. By de?nition, a behavior pattern is maladaptive when it interferes with effective occupational, social, physical, or recreational functioning.

Rationally or Culturally Unjusti?able If a client’s behavior, thought, or feeling is unusual or maladaptive, you should ascertain whether there is any reasonable excuse or justi?cation for it. Take the case of a client who claimed that because his wife was unable to determine when she was hungry or sleepy, he saw it as his responsibility to force her to eat or sleep when he judged it necessary to do so. Think about this scenario. Are there any rational justi?cations that a man might have for forcing his spouse to eat or sleep? In such a case, it is appropriate to focus on whether the spouse is capable of caring for herself. We asked several questions: How old is she? Is she able to work or perform other functions effectively? Does she have Alzheimer’s or another brain disease or de?ciency? The client could be asked to describe why he thought his wife was unable to determine appropriate times to eat and sleep. In this case, the answers were revealing. His wife was capable of working outside the home. She was in her mid forties. She did not have any identi?able brain dis154 Structuring and Assessmentease or damage. He attributed her inability to monitor her own needs for sleep and food to the fact that she had a brother who was “mentally retarded”; therefore, he concluded, she probably had similar genetic de?cits .