This is thought to underlie many unhealthy “escape” behaviors, such as substance use, risky sexual behavior, and deliberate self-harm. It may also increase the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in people who have experienced severe trauma. Experiential avoidance often becomes a cycle through the process of negative reinforcement. Because this type of avoidance provides short-term relief, it increases the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated.
History of Experiential Avoidance
Avoiding negative internal experiences is a natural instinct. However, psychotherapists dating back to Sigmund Freud have argued that avoidance in facing our emotional experience can negatively impact our mental health and behaviors. For more mental health resources, see our National Helpline Database. In the 1990s, psychologists began referring to avoidance and escape behaviors as experiential avoidance. In 1996, psychologists from the University of Nevada wrote in an important paper that “many forms of psychopathology are not merely bad problems, they are also bad solutions, based on a dangerous and ineffective use of experiential avoidance strategies.”
Signs of Experiential Avoidance
People engage in different types of experiential avoidance all the time. It is characterized by any action designed to deal with internal experiences. Some examples in day-to-day life include putting on a warm jacket when it is cold outside, browsing social media when you’re feeling bored, or calling a friend when you’re feeling bored. When these behaviors interfere with normal functioning or when they are applied in harmful ways, they become problematic. Some signs of potentially harmful experiential avoidance include:
Avoiding situations that make you uncomfortableJudgmental thoughtsUsing substances to avoid dealing with unpleasant emotionsTrying not to think about things that cause distressWithdrawing from social experiences to prevent feelings of anxiety
While these avoidance behaviors are attempts to control internal experiences, they ultimately worsen distress and tend to be life-limiting. Thought stopping, for example, contributes to thought rebounding, in which people find themselves dealing with even more negative thoughts.
Impact of Experiential Avoidance
While everyone engages in certain types of experiential avoidance, chronic use of this approach can negatively affect many different areas of life. For example, people may put off important tasks because they create discomfort or anxiety. In other cases, people might forgo opportunities because they are worried about failing. It can also have a serious impact on interpersonal relationships. People might avoid spending time with others or skip social occasions because they fear feelings of discomfort or anxiety. Fear of being vulnerable can also cause people to avoid close relationships altogether. Experiential avoidance has been associated with:
Anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder Bipolar disorder Deliberate self-harm Fear of negative evaluations Fear of traumatic events High-risk sexual behavior Obsessive-compulsive disorder Panic disorder Procrastination Substance abuse Suicide Trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder Trichotillomania Worry
Experiential avoidance is also believed to increase a traumatized person’s risk of developing and maintaining PTSD. For example, a study published in 2014 found that abused children were much more likely to develop PTSD if they tried to avoid painful thoughts and emotions after the abuse rather than talking about their negative feelings. Research suggests that experiential avoidance has a considerable impact on the severity of psychological distress that survivors of childhood sexual abuse experience in adulthood. Experiential avoidance is one of three emotion regulation strategies believed to increase the risk of PTSD. The other two emotion regulation strategies implicated in PTSD are rumination and thought suppression.
How to Deal With Experiential Avoidance
The opposite of avoidance is acceptance. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a type of psychotherapy that was developed to reduce experiential avoidance. ACT is based on the idea that suffering comes not from the experience of emotional pain but from our attempted avoidance of that pain. Its overarching goal is to help people be open to and willing to have their inner experiences while focusing attention not on trying to escape or avoid pain (because this is impossible to do) but instead on living a meaningful life. There are five goals of ACT: ACT is one form of treatment recommended for PTSD and other psychological problems related to experiential avoidance.
