group argued that they wanted to know as much as possible about any such
situation to prepare themselves in case the unfortunate event should happento them.
The differences in opinion clearly reflected different strategies for dealing
with anxiety. Early researchers in this area probably would have divided thetwo groups of parents along a personality dimension called repression-
sensitization (Byrne, 1964). At one end of this dimension are people who typ-
ically respond to threatening situations by avoiding them. These repressors
try not to think about the situation and thereby succeed in avoiding the anxi-
ety as much or as long as possible. We see this strategy at work when people
advise us that “worrying about it will do no good ”and to “try to think of
something else to take your mind off it. ”If you have ever put off seeing a
doctor or talking to a professor because you expected the encounter to bestressful, you have used the repression strategy. At the other end of the di-
mension are the sensitizers. These people typically deal with a stressful situa-
tion by finding out as much as possible, as soon as possible, and thereby put
themselves in a position to take the most effective action. You may have em-ployed this strategy if you read up on a scheduled medical procedure or spent
a great deal of time preparing for an upcoming job interview.
Subsequent investigators have developed more sophisticated and complex
systems to categorize the many different coping strategies people employ (Gol &Cook, 2004; Lazarus, 2006; Skinner, Edge, Altman, & Sherwood, 2003;
Stanton, Kirk, Cameron, & Danoff-Burg, 2000; Zuckerman & Gagne, 2003).
However, we can identify a few basic distinctions that most researchers find
useful. First, we can divide coping strategies into those in which people take
an active role to deal with the problem and those in which people try to avoid
the problem. This is similar to the sensitization-repression distinction drawn by
early investigators. Second, we can separate the active-role strategies into those
that aimed at the source of the stress and those that focused on the emotionalreaction to the experience (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). This organization
leaves us with three basic ways to deal with anxiety: problem-focused strate-
gies, emotion-focused strategies, and avoidance strategies.
Problem-focused strategies are intended to take care of the problem and
thereby overcoming the anxiety. If the problem is financial, we look for waysto earn more money or reduce expenses. If struggling in a class, we seek out atutor or make extra time to work on assignments. People employing problem-
focused strategies often find that simply making plans to deal with the prob-
lem makes them feel better than sitting back and doing nothing at all.
Emotion-focused strategies are designed to reduce the emotional distress
that accompanies the problem. A student not accepted to law school mightconsider how this apparent setback could be for the best. Couples can dealwith an emotionally painful divorce by talking about their feelings with
friends or with a professional counselor.
People who use avoidance strategies deal with their emotions by pushing
the anxiety-provoking situation out of awareness. When learning that a friendhas a serious health problem, a woman might respond by not thinking about
the friend or by convincing herself that the problem is not as serious as people128 CHAPTER 6 The Neo-Freudian Theories