maladaptive.

Providing a response that fails to help and may make a person's situation worse over time.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• maladaptive coping
• maladaptive pattern

On the page

Avoiding every disagreement became a maladaptive way of protecting the relationship.

Usage notes

Primary category: psychology / human behavior. Forms: Normally non-gradable; no ordinary comparative or superlative. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Commonness: moderately common.