Maladaptive behaviors are patterns of disruptive behavior that impair a person’s ability to adapt and function across different areas of life. Examples of maladaptive behavior include aggression, self-harm, and destructive behavior. [1]
They typically begin as coping strategies to handle stressful and challenging situations, providing a person with temporary relief or a short-term solution. Over time, they often begin to cause more harm than good, posing safety risks to both the individual and those around them. [1]
This article will explore the causes of maladaptive behaviors, associated mental health conditions, types of maladaptive behaviors, their long-term risks, and how to treat them.
- Maladaptive behaviors are coping strategies that once provided an individual with relief but now impair their ability to function effectively.
- If ignored, maladaptive behaviors can damage a person’s relationships, finances, and both their physical and mental health.
- Treatment consists of behavioral therapies, sometimes alongside pharmacological intervention if deemed necessary by a suitably qualified healthcare professional.
Understanding maladaptive behaviors
“Maladaptive” describes a behavior that has failed to adjust well to what a situation demands. A maladaptive behavior may once have helped someone cope with an unwanted feeling or situation, but has since begun to have negative effects on that person. [2]
Someone who grew up in a chaotic, messy household may have learned to control their surroundings obsessively to feel safe, keeping their bedroom meticulous through a stringent cleaning routine. As an adult, this ingrained need for control might have detrimental effects on their relationships, such as their ability to trust colleagues with tasks.
What started as a constructive way to offset a negative environment has resulted in someone operating in ways that lead to poor relationships and reduced productivity, and that reinforce the very anxiety the initial maladaptive behavior was meant to alleviate.
Recognizing the void between an old coping behavior and its harmful, evolved form is central to understanding maladaptive behaviors.
Causes of maladaptive behavior
There are several reasons that people exhibit maladaptive behaviors. They often develop in response to events in childhood or as part of a mental health condition. Common examples of maladaptive behaviors include:
Trauma
Research shows a strong correlation between trauma, particularly childhood trauma, and the development of maladaptive behaviors, including self-harm, substance use, and unsafe sexual behavior. [3]
Anxiety Disorders
People with anxiety disorders commonly exhibit maladaptive behaviors, with research showing that almost 90% of people with an anxiety disorder were likely to engage in maladaptive behavior to manage their worry. [4]
Hypervigilance, checking behaviors, and avoidance behaviors are all ways people with GAD attempt to deal with their symptoms. [4] Avoidance also shows up in social anxiety disorder, where sufferers steer clear of certain social or performance situations, and in panic disorder, where individuals may avoid exercise or other activities that mimic the physical sensations of a panic attack. [4]
Autism spectrum disorder
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can demonstrate external maladaptive behaviors, such as aggression, self-harm, and throwing tantrums, and internal maladaptive behaviors such as fear, anxiety, and withdrawal. [5]
Borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is one of the psychiatric conditions most strongly linked with maladaptive behavior. People with BPD often engage in long-standing patterns of maladaptive coping responses that can include substance use, impulsive spending, high-risk sexual behavior, self-injury, suicidal behavior, and aggression. [6]
Chronic Stress
Frequent bouts of stress can wear down a person’s ability to cope healthily, pushing them towards maladaptive strategies instead. When a person’s stress response stays regularly activated, they become emotionally dysregulated, triggering maladaptive behavioral patterns. [7]
Eating Disorders
Eating disorders result from a combination of a person’s dysregulated emotional state and personal environment. Both overeating and undereating are maladaptive behaviors that may be relied on to bypass or control the negative feelings they experience. [8]
Examples of maladaptive behavior
People exhibit maladaptive behaviors differently and may display various behaviors depending on their current situation. Common examples include:
- Avoidance - Avoidance is a well-documented maladaptive response to anxiety-inducing situations and chronic stress. Examples of maladaptive avoidant behaviors include denial, distancing, and escaping from one’s problems. [9] [11]
- Daydreaming - While a harmless pastime for many, daydreaming becomes maladaptive when a person excessively and addictively daydreams to escape, causing them to lose touch with reality and experience distress and functional impairment. [10]
- Self-harm and suicidal thoughts - For adults who experienced childhood trauma, self-harm or suicidal thoughts can sometimes surface as a way of coping with overwhelming pain. They can emerge as a way to numb pain, express distress, or exert control while feeling powerless in a situation.
While they may seem to soothe difficult feelings in the moment, these behaviors carry grave risks and often worsen the pain they are meant to alleviate. [11] If you or someone you know is either self-harming or having suicidal thoughts, talking with a therapist or another trained medical professional is an essential step towards healing. - Anger - Anger is a legitimate emotional reaction to feeling threatened, frustrated, or deliberately provoked. However, if you’re constantly responding angrily to triggers, it may be a sign of an underlying issue rather than a normal response. [13]It is essential that you learn to release your anger and frustration in a way that doesn’t hurt yourself or others. Recognizing your triggers and learning to respond with empathy can help stem aggression and prevent you from feeling angry. [13]
- Passive aggression - Rather than acknowledging and communicating their negative emotions, they may displace those feelings onto others, reacting with anger or criticism about unrelated matters.
Maladaptive behavior and substance use
Some people start using drugs and alcohol to escape difficult emotions rather than confronting them directly. Recreational drug use can lead to dependency, with substances being used to numb stress or anxiety rather than addressing their root cause. [28]
This is what makes prolonged or risky substance use maladaptive; it offers short-term relief but leaves the underlying issue unresolved. Over time, this creates a second problem on top of the first.
Signs of maladaptive behavior
Maladaptive behaviors can present in many different ways, but they share a common thread: a detrimental effect on both physical and mental health. Signs to look out for include:
- Difficulty regulating emotions: A person can react to minor setbacks with a level of anger, tears, or panic that feels out of proportion to what actually happened.
- Self-sabotage: Behaviors and choices that undermine important goals, wellbeing, relationships, or progress, despite consciously wanting a different outcome.
- Avoidance: This may look like steering clear of social situations, appointments, or responsibilities that trigger discomfort, such as skipping gatherings where food or body image might come up, or where there are many strangers to make conversation with. [1]
- Withdrawal from social relationships: This might look like pulling away from friends or family, canceling plans, or going quiet on messages without an obvious reason.
- Decline in the quality of everyday life: This could be poor performance at work or in school, or in basic self-care, due to the amount of energy a behavior or emotion consumes.
- Overeating: Eating large amounts of food as a response to negative emotions is a maladaptive behavior linked to several eating disorders such as bulimia, obesity, and binge-eating disorder. [14]
- Rigid or repetitive routines: Feeling unable to deviate from strict daily habits, like needing meals, exercise, or schedules to happen a certain way to feel content. Any deviation leads to disproportionate outbursts of anger or irritation. [15]
- Denial or minimizing: Downplaying the severity of a situation when a friend or family member raises concern about a pattern they've noticed. [16]
- Persistent negative self-talk: Regularly thinking or saying things like "I always mess this up," even when there's no clear evidence for it. Maladaptive self-criticism is unconstructive and doesn’t lead to goal attainment. [17]
Identifying signs in children
Maladaptive behaviors in children are often best understood through two broad categories: externalizing and internalizing patterns.
Externalizing signs include tantrums, defiance or rule-breaking, destructive behavior, and impulsivity that disrupts school or home life. [7] [18]
Internalizing signs include withdrawal from peers and family, excessive anxiety or fearfulness, somatic complaints e.g., stomachaches, headaches with no medical cause, and persistent low mood. [27]
It's important to note that these signs can overlap with other conditions, such as ADHD, learning difficulties, or autism, as well as underlying medical issues. If you notice them, consult a pediatrician, child psychologist, or other trained medical professional, rather than diagnosing yourself at home.
Long-term impact of maladaptive behaviors
Maladaptive behaviors can have a damaging impact in many areas of life. These are explored below:
Relationships
Maladaptive behaviors in relationships undermine important foundations of trust, connection, and communication. Lying to a partner is a common maladaptive behavior exhibited by people in relationships. To mask a transgression, such as infidelity or financial problems, a person may lie profusely to appease their partner. [20] [21]
Similarly, some people default to conflict avoidance, withdrawing or shutting down whenever tension arises rather than addressing problems directly, while others may lean toward controlling behaviors, such as monitoring a partner's activities or restricting their independence, to manage insecurity.
While these patterns may reduce short-term discomfort, their long-term costs compound. Repeated lying erodes trust and transparency, often forcing the liar to maintain an increasingly complex web of deception. Chronic avoidance leaves core issues unresolved, letting resentment build until it surfaces in more damaging ways. Controlling behavior can restrict a partner's autonomy, breeding resentment rather than the security it's meant to create.
Over time, these dynamics can erode the kinship, intimacy, and trust that are crucial tenets of a successful relationship. [22]
Finances
Maladaptive financial behaviors undermine financial stability and include behaviors like overspending, avoidance of money management, and financial secrecy. While providing temporary relief, these behaviors can lead to spiraling debt and a low credit score, impairing one’s future financial prospects. The resulting stress can also disrupt sleep and strain personal relationships, extending the damage well beyond a person's bank account. [22] [23]
Physical and mental health
An individual’s physical and mental health can suffer from long term-practice of maladaptive behaviors.
Overeating, excessive alcohol consumption, or substance use disorders can cause long-term physical damage. Also, chronic stress and anxiety caused by maladaptive behaviors can lead to a decline in overall self-care.
On the mental health side, relying on maladaptive behaviors can perpetuate the mental health problems they were meant to alleviate. Anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem can all worsen in an individual as they do not confront the underlying issue that led to them performing the maladaptive behavior.
Treatment options
Maladaptive behaviors can cause long-term stress and lead to, or worsen, mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression. [7] Treatment involves identifying the underlying cause of an individual’s maladaptive behavior and developing a plan to prevent them from engaging in it. This is typically done alongside a therapist or other qualified mental health professional.
Treatment options include:
Psychotherapy
Different psychotherapeutic interventions work for different people. For instance, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) focuses on changing a patient’s thought processes to modify their behavior. Alternatively, behavioral modification therapy (BMT) works by targeting behaviors directly with little regard for their thoughts or feelings. Exposure therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) may also be helpful in treating maladaptive behaviors.[4][24]
Pharmacological intervention
Medication can be prescribed to treat an underlying mental health condition, such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, ADHD, or BPD, rather than the maladaptive behavior itself. Antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers (for bipolar disorder), and stimulants (for ADHD) may all be prescribed to patients exhibiting maladaptive behaviors. It is imperative that you consult with your healthcare provider before embarking on any pharmacological treatment. [25]
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