1.

1 Coping as a Fundamental Adaptive Process 9

interactions among subsystems that produce the patterning of processes over time
known as development.
The key idea is that coping, although manifest at the level of individual action, is
the product of a multi-level system, including the subsystems (physiological,
neurological, emotional, attentional, cognitive, motivational) that give rise to cop-
ing, and the social, relational, and cultural contexts in which it is embedded. As
graphically depicted in Fig. 1.2, processes of coping can operate on multiple levels

Fig. 1.2 Multi-level conceptualization of coping as a developmental process, an episodic process,

and an interactional process