What is Functional Maladaptive Behaviour?

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It is possible that Maladpative behaviour can occur because it is functional meaning it serves a purpose!

For example, you are feeling frustrated with the behaviour of a colleague at work but are unable to talk about it as the colleague just wont listen to you or minimizes what you feel etc.

In such situations it is possible that you may lose your cool as the frustration builds up and it may end up in the unhealthy ways of expression of anger like shouting, name calling and passing indirect, sarcastic remarks or you just avoid meeting this person and so on. In your mind, the expression is serving a purpose. However, what stands out could be the behaviour and this could lead to the issue not getting addressed or getting labeled for that as a person who shouts or is rude etc.

The root cause of what happened is the lack of communication to address the problem and the unhealthy expression is then a functional adaption to address this.

If you are facing such a situation, it is possible to work through this in more productive ways, addressing the root cause and also finding more healthier ways of expression.