[Coping or adaptive processes in psychosomatic medicine].

In the last decade a new psychological concept was derived from the pre-scientific English term "coping" and introduced into what is known as illness-behaviour. Coping supplements the psychoanalytical defence theory by forming part of the adaption processes in illness and helping to overcome illness as a psychic crisis. The present paper is an attempt to provide a critical analyses of all literature available on the concept of coping. After various examples of a definition of the term, it was shown how coping differs from defence mechanisms, the connection between stress and coping was explained and a comprehensive illness model was presented. Then followed a discussion of the better known forms of coping to date and a brief presentation of fields of scientific research which could benefit from the coping concept.