Adaptation

An adaptation is what you learned to do to be okay. When a Core Need is not reliably met, you learn a strategy to get it met or to protect yourself from the pain of going without.

Adaptation is the model name. "What you learned to do to be okay" is the everyday phrase.

The short version is: Core Need × Condition × Nature → Strategy. The strategy works a little, so it gets repeated. Repetition makes it automatic. Then it spreads to situations that only resemble the first one.

A tiny example. Growing up, no one asked how your day had been, so you learned to sort everything out alone. As an adult, you rarely ask for help at work, even when the deadline is impossible. That is the Absent condition, still shaping a choice years later.

Adaptations are intelligent, not broken. You use a strategy; you are not the strategy. And adults keep adapting, to partners, jobs and loss.

Read more on How adaptation works.