Which description best captures Stage 2 outward adjustment behavior?

• A. Deny, minimize, rationalizing the reason, avoiding reminders, fewer episodes of reliving the assault; returning to crisis.
• B. Immediate confession and reporting to police.
• C. Complete emotional numbness with no coping strategies.
• D. Reliving memories with no coping.

Answer: (A)

In Stage 2 outward adjustment, the person starts functioning day-to-day after the trauma while still using coping strategies to manage distress. They often present as more stable on the surface, but their defenses are in play: denial or minimization of what happened, rationalizing the reason it occurred, and avoiding reminders that could trigger distress. This helps keep the individual moving forward and reduces the immediate sense of crisis, which is why you see fewer episodes of re-experiencing the event. Yet returning to crisis indicates that, beneath the outward shell, the underlying trauma remains active and can surface under pressure. The other descriptions don’t fit this pattern: immediate confession or police reporting is an external action rather than internal adjustment; complete emotional numbness with no coping lacks the active strategies described; reliving memories with no coping shows persistent intrusion without the avoidance that characterizes outward adjustment.