What If Your Difficulties Are Trying to Help You Cope?

There are times when something in us begins to feel difficult.

Anxiety appears.

Sleep changes.

We become irritable.

We withdraw.

We overwork.

We avoid.

We worry constantly.

We may experience physical tension, emotional exhaustion or behaviours that we ourselves do not fully understand.

And our first question is often:

How do I make this stop?

It is an understandable question.

When something causes distress, we naturally want relief.

But Positive Psychotherapy invites us to ask another question as well:

What might this difficulty be trying to do for me?

Not because the symptom is desirable.

Not because suffering should be romanticised.

And certainly not because every difficulty has one simple explanation.

But because sometimes a symptom may also be understood as an attempt to cope with something that feels difficult to manage in another way. Positive Psychotherapy calls attention to the possible function and psychodynamic meaning of symptoms, rather than viewing only their pathological aspects.

A symptom may be more than a symptom

Imagine someone who finds it almost impossible to say no.

They agree.

They accommodate.

They avoid disappointing people.

They continue giving long after they are exhausted.

Eventually, perhaps their body begins to say what they have struggled to say themselves.

They become tired.

Tense.

Irritable.

Unable to continue at the same pace.

The symptom is still real.

The exhaustion is real.

But perhaps the more useful question is not only:

Why am I exhausted?

It may also be:

What has my exhaustion finally made impossible for me to continue doing?

This does not mean that every symptom has a psychological cause, nor that medical or psychological assessment should be replaced by interpretation.

It means that alongside asking what is wrong, we can sometimes ask what the difficulty may be expressing.

The positive does not mean “good”

The word positive in Positive Psychotherapy is sometimes misunderstood.

It does not mean thinking positively.

It does not mean looking for the bright side of suffering.

And it does not mean pretending that painful experiences are somehow beneficial.

In Peseschkian’s approach, the idea of the “positive” is connected with seeing the whole picture — not only the disorder or the problem, but also the person’s capacities, resources and potential to cope.

A difficulty may therefore be explored from more than one perspective.

What is painful about it?

What function might it be serving?

What does it prevent?

What does it make possible?

What conflict might it be connected to?

What ability is the person already using, even if in a way that has become costly?

This shift can change the therapeutic conversation.

From:

What is wrong with me?

towards:

What is happening within me — and what might I need?

Sometimes our coping strategies once made sense

Many of the ways we cope did not begin randomly.

Perhaps being quiet helped us avoid conflict.

Perhaps taking care of everyone helped us feel needed.

Perhaps perfectionism once gave us a sense of safety.

Perhaps staying constantly busy helped us avoid emotions that felt overwhelming.

Perhaps withdrawing protected us from rejection.

Perhaps controlling every detail reduced uncertainty.

At another time in our lives, these strategies may have helped us adapt.

The difficulty is that a strategy that once protected us can later begin to restrict us.

What once helped us survive a situation may not be what helps us live well today.

This is why simply fighting a behaviour can sometimes feel so difficult.

We may be trying to remove something before understanding why it became necessary.

From symptom to conflict

One of the central ideas in Positive Psychotherapy is to look beyond the symptom toward the conflict and the possible function of the difficulty.

For example:

A person may experience anxiety.

But behind the anxiety there may be a conflict between security and independence.

Another person may feel chronically resentful.

Behind the resentment there may be a long history of giving without expressing needs.

Someone else may continually overwork.

Behind the overworking there may be a strong need for recognition, predictability or self-worth.

The same symptom can mean very different things for different people.

That is why interpretation is not imposed.

Positive Psychotherapy treats such interpretations as possibilities to explore rather than conclusions to declare.

The question becomes:

Does this understanding fit your experience?

What has moved out of balance?

Positive Psychotherapy also looks at how our energy is distributed across four major areas of life:

Body / Health
Achievement / Work
Contact / Relationships
Future / Meaning

This is known as the Balance Model, one of the central models of the approach. It considers how these areas influence life satisfaction, self-esteem and the way people respond to conflicts and challenges.

We do not need to divide our lives perfectly between all four areas.

Life rarely works that way.

There will be periods when work requires more of us.

Times when relationships need more attention.

Times when health becomes central.

Times when questions about the future or meaning come to the foreground.

But difficulties may emerge when one area repeatedly absorbs most of our energy while others remain neglected.

Someone may invest almost everything in achievement while their body is exhausted.

Someone may invest almost everything in relationships while losing contact with their own needs.

Someone may function efficiently in the present while feeling that the future holds very little meaning.

The Balance Model gives us another way to ask:

Where is my energy going — and what part of my life may be asking for attention?

Your difficulty is not your whole identity

When people struggle for long enough, the language around the difficulty can begin to define them.

I am anxious.

I am difficult.

I am weak.

I am broken.

But a person is always more than the symptom they are experiencing.

Positive Psychotherapy is explicitly resource-oriented: it attends not only to difficulties but also to abilities and resources that can support conflict management and self-help.

Someone who worries constantly may also have a strong capacity for responsibility.

Someone who struggles to say no may have a deep capacity for care.

Someone who seeks control may have a strong need to create safety and predictability.

These capacities are not the problem in themselves.

The question is often how they are being used, whether they are in balance, and whether another way of expressing them is possible.

A moment to reflect

Think of one difficulty that repeatedly appears in your life.

Instead of asking only:

How do I get rid of this?

Τry asking:

When does it appear most strongly?

What tends to happen just before it?

What does it help me avoid, postpone or protect myself from?

What need might be underneath it?

What would become difficult if this coping strategy suddenly disappeared?

Which part of my life currently receives most of my energy?

Which part receives very little?

You do not need to force an explanation.

The aim is not to make every experience “mean” something.

It is simply to become curious about yourself rather than immediately becoming your own critic.

Understanding is not the same as staying the same

Understanding why a coping strategy developed does not mean we must continue using it.

We can appreciate what something once did for us and still decide that we need another way forward.

Perhaps anxiety once kept us constantly prepared.

But now we need to learn how to tolerate uncertainty.

Perhaps pleasing others once protected an important relationship.

But now we need to learn how to express boundaries.

Perhaps overworking once gave us a sense of worth.

But now we may need to discover that our value is not dependent entirely on what we achieve.

The goal is not to fight ourselves. It is to understand ourselves well enough to develop new possibilities.

One final question

The next time a familiar difficulty appears, instead of immediately asking:

Why am I doing this again?

you might try asking:

What am I trying to cope with right now?

Sometimes that question opens a very different door.

Not one that excuses the difficulty.

One that helps us understand it.

And from understanding, new choices can begin.

Sometimes change begins not when we fight the symptom harder, but when we understand what it has been trying to do for us.

Anastasia Pantikidou, MSc
Psychologist – Psychotherapist | Clinical Psychology & Mental Health | Positive Psychotherapy

References & Further Reading

Peseschkian, H. (2023). Positive psychotherapy: Core principles. Current Psychiatry, 22(1), 5–9.

Peseschkian, H., & Remmers, A. (2025). Life Balance with Positive Psychotherapy. In E. Messias & H. Peseschkian (Eds.), Positive Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychology. Springer.

Peseschkian Foundation. The Balance Model of Positive Psychotherapy.