Ever noticed yourself snapping at a loved one after a stressful workday? Scrolling through your phone for hours to avoid a difficult task? Avoided eye contact to prevent having to interact with another person?
These are maladaptive behaviors—any strategy or pattern of behavior that provides short-term relief or a sense of control but is harmful, counterproductive, or damaging in the long run.
Maladaptive behaviors are patterns that may have helped you cope or survive at one time. But now they create more problems than they solve. They usually arise to reduce distress quickly. Yet they end up reinforcing anxiety, shame, and avoidance over the long term.
It’s a human response to stress, pain, or fear. Everyone engages in some form of maladaptive behavior. The key is recognizing it.
In this article, I explore the why behind these patterns with their roots in survival and learned experience and provide suggestions for how to identify and transform them into healthier coping strategies.
Understanding the Roots of Maladaptive Patterns
Maladaptive behaviors are not random; we learned them as solutions to real problems, often from the past.
The brain makes it a priority to gain immediate relief from distress, such as anxiety, sadness, or shame, for short-term gain. Avoidance reduces anxiety now. Substance use numbs pain now. People-pleasing prevents conflict now.
Many behaviors were adaptive in specific past contexts, such as a childhood home or a past toxic relationship. Hypervigilance in an unpredictable household was protective. The problem arises when it’s applied to all adult relationships.
Often, individuals just haven’t learned or had the opportunity to practice healthier skills for emotional regulation, communication, or setting boundaries. This is not a personal failing but a gap in one’s “wellness toolkit.”
Maladaptive Behaviors Explained
There are three main characteristics of maladaptive behaviors [1]:
- Short‑term coping strategies: They reduce emotional pain, anxiety, or threat fast (e.g., avoidance, substance use, people‑pleasing).
- Learned responses: They were adaptive in earlier environments (e.g., chaotic, abusive, highly critical homes) but are mismatched to current demands.
- Reinforced by relief: Every time the behavior lowers distress, the nervous system “learns” to repeat it, even if it damages relationships, health, or functioning.
Common Drivers Include
Maladaptive behaviors arise from a variety of circumstances, including [2]:
- Trauma and chronic stress (including attachment trauma).
- Learned modeling of caregivers’ coping strategies, such as explosions, withdrawal, and perfectionism, is another common driver.
- Cognitive distortions such as catastrophizing, black-and-white thinking, and overgeneralization often occur.
- Emotional dysregulation, underlying anxiety, depression, personality traits, or neurodevelopmental conditions may also be present.
Common Examples of Maladaptive Behaviors
There are many forms of maladaptive behaviors, including [1] [2] [3]:
- Avoidance and Procrastination: Avoiding people, tasks, or emotions that cause discomfort.
- Emotional Outbursts: Expressing anger, crying, or aggression as a release valve for other feelings.
- Self-Sabotage: Undermining your goals before a deadline or in relationships.
- Impulsivity: Not thinking through what might happen next.
- Perfectionism: An unrealistically high standard used to control outcomes and avoid criticism.
- Unhealthy Self-Soothing: Engaging in substance abuse, disordered eating, compulsive spending, or excessive technology use.
- People-Pleasing and Passive-Aggression: Avoiding direct communication using dysfunctional relational patterns.
- Rumination: Involved in negative thinking loops about things that have already happened.
How Maladaptive Behaviors Are Maintained
Once established, maladaptive patterns persist because [4]:
- They are negatively reinforced (avoidance removes anxiety, so avoidance grows).
- They become part of identity and relationship roles (“I’m the fixer,” “I’m the problem”).
- Environmental contingencies (family, workplace, culture) reward the behavior or punish attempts to change.
- The person often lacks competing skills (distress tolerance, assertiveness, and problem‑solving).
Many of these behaviors function as safety behaviors or experiential avoidance. They protect from feared internal states or external outcomes. This prevents corrective learning and keeps the fear structure intact.
6 Steps to Change: How to Cultivate Adaptive Behaviors
Here are six steps you can take to develop more adaptive behaviors [1] [4].
- Cultivate Mindful Awareness (Without Judgment).
- Become a curious observer of your behavior. “What was the trigger? What was the feeling I was trying to escape? What did I hope would happen?”
- Identify the Underlying Need
- Every maladaptive behavior tries to meet a need (safety, connection, control, rest).
- Ask: “What did that behavior try to do for me?” This separates your intent from the harmful outcome.
- Develop and Practice Alternative Skills
- Practice gradual exposure and tolerating discomfort instead of avoidance.
- Learn emotional identification and pausing techniques (e.g., deep breathing, taking a walk) instead of emotional outbursts.
- Practice assertive communication and boundary-setting in low-stakes situations instead of people-pleasing.
- Emotion regulation (labeling affect, opposing‑action, behavioral activation).
- Distress tolerance (grounding, paced breathing, urge surfing, sensory strategies).
- Interpersonal skills (assertiveness, boundary‑setting, repair conversations).
- Cognitive skills (defusion, cognitive restructuring, compassion‑focused work).
- Exposure and Response Prevention
- Gradually approach avoided situations or emotions while not stopping the old behavior.
- Stay long enough to learn that feared outcomes are survivable or less catastrophic than expected.
- Environment Shaping
- Reduce reinforcing the maladaptive pattern (e.g., limit accommodation, remove some cues).
- Increase reinforcement for steps of the new behavior (praise, self-reward, supportive accountability).
- Practice Self-Compassion
- Change is a spiral, not a straight line. Setbacks are data, not failure.
- Treat yourself as you would a good friend.
Evidence‑Based Therapies
Several therapies are particularly suited to restructuring maladaptive behavior:
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Targets distorted beliefs, safety behaviors, and avoidance with behavioral experiments and cognitive restructuring.
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): Addresses chronic emotion dysregulation and high‑risk behaviors. Uses skills modules (mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness) and a strong behavioral focus.
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Frames behaviors as experiential avoidance and promotes acceptance plus committed action in line with values, with emphasis on defusion and self‑as‑context.
- Schema Therapy: It sees long-term maladaptive behaviors as coming from unmet needs in the past and uses limited reparenting, imagery, and behavioral change to create healthier schemas.
- Trauma‑focused work (e.g., EMDR, TF‑CBT, parts work): Targets trauma‑linked patterns so the nervous system no longer needs extreme protection strategies.
Changing maladaptive behavior involves understanding its protective origin and then patiently and consistently practicing new, healthier skills. This process can be challenging to do alone. Therapy is the ideal space for this work.
Finding Support for Healing at Corner Canyon
Treatment for mental health conditions and trauma is available in Utah. Are you or a loved one looking for a compassionate space to heal from OCD, anxiety, trauma, PTSD, CPTSD, other mental health conditions, or addictions? Our licensed trauma-informed professional therapists and counselors at Corner Canyon Health Centers can provide compassionate help using a range of therapeutic and holistic techniques.
Reach out to our Admissions team now at Corner Canyon. We’re in a peaceful setting bordered by the beautiful Wasatch Mountains.
Sources
[1] Marston D. 2022. Maladaptive Behavior: Definition, Causes, & Treatment. Choosingtherapy.com.
[2] Pietrangelo A. 2020. Identifying and Treating Maladaptive Behavior. Healthline.com.
[3] Preferred Medical Group. 2025. What Is Maladaptive Behavior and How It Affects Mental Health.
[4] Sutton J. 2020. Maladaptive Coping: 15 Behavior Examples & Mechanisms. PositivePsychology.com.