ABSTRACT
Coping is integral to minimizing these responses since it encourages adaptation. As R. S. Lazarus says, coping is “concerned with our efforts to manage adaptional demands and the emotions they generate”. An exercise that can help with awareness of coping is to draw a circle and put ourselves in the center. Research indicates that coping groups where trauma survivors actively learn and support each other's development of coping skills are efficacious. Survivors learn coping from family, friends and through their own experience. Some coping does not relate to the trauma and some develops as a direct result of what occurred. Examples of cultural coping methods include religious beliefs, rituals, traditions, food preparation, dance, music, art, clothing and costumes and ideologies. The ordinariness of practicing coping also means that it is less likely to add to the shame many feel as a result of traumatic experiences, increasing the likelihood of effective coping.
