Stress Responses: A Debate of Instincts
‘What would you do’ questions are a useful tool that we enjoy playing with and debating to hypothesize what we are capable of within a stressful situation, but can we accurately hypothesize what our reactions might be based only on fight or flight? According to Dr. Curtis Reisinger, a clinical psychologist at Zucker Hillside Hospital, the fight or flight duo is oversimplified and outdated. He claims that our instincts include freeze, fawn, flooding, and fatigue responses (Borkhataria, 2017). Others, such as Dr. Arielle Shwartz, author of The Neurobiology of Trauma state that while we do have a freeze response, the other three responses within our spectrums are fright, flag, and faint (Schwartz, 2017). While there are similarities between the two theories, to give you a proper understanding of each we will be discussing the intricacies over three articles, starting with the freeze response.
“Being physically, mentally, and emotionally immobilized by your consternation permits you not to feel the harrowing enormity of what’s happening to you, which in your hyperaroused state might threaten your very sanity.”
Dr. Leon Seltzer
What precisely do researchers mean by the term ‘freezing’? Scientists often define freezing as physical immobility or inhibition of actions and behaviors. It is like playing possum when faced with something perceived as threatening. In many circumstances, it can be counterproductive to our safety, but when our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems agree that we can’t fight back and fleeing isn’t an option, it can help you survive. Freezing when a car is speeding towards you as if you were a deer caught in the headlights can certainly work against you, but if there’s no time to get out of the way, some of the chemicals our brains release in these moments, such as endorphins (also known as endogenous morphine), function as an analgesic, so the pain of the physical injury is experienced with far less intensity.
This reaction helps us to numb out and disassociate to be further removed from the pain. Interestingly enough, this can also happen with mental pain. This is often seen in instances of sexual abuse and assault, though children are the most susceptible since they typically cannot physically fight back or run away, as they are typically reliant on the adult committing the act. According to Dr. Leon Seltzer, author of Trauma and the Freeze Response: Good, Bad, or Both?, “Being physically, mentally, and emotionally immobilized by your consternation permits you not to feel the harrowing enormity of what’s happening to you, which in your hyperaroused state might threaten your very sanity.”
While disassociating from the physical or mental pain can help in the moment, Dr. Seltzer goes on to state, “Such ‘paralyzing’ psychological phenomena as phobias, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and various anxiety states can frequently be understood as symptoms of a freeze response that never had the chance to ‘let go’ or ‘thaw out’ once the original experience was over.” In short, this survival-oriented response can keep you subconsciously trapped in that moment of injury or abuse.
While Dr. Reisinger and Dr. Seltzer acknowledge the freeze response to be a reaction used when fight or flight won’t work, Dr. Shwartz claims it is the first reaction we have. She claims, “The goal is to “stop, look, and listen” to better understand the situation and to determine if there is a threat… Most importantly, freeze occurs in preparation for action and is short-lived. (Shwartz, 2017).” This is a vastly different description of the freeze response compared to the views of Dr. Reisinger and Dr. Seltzer, but Dr. Jim Hopper states in his article Freezing During Sexual Assault and Harassment that there are three types of freezing; detection, shock, and no-good-choices.
Dr. Hopper explains that during an assault, there’s a critical moment when the attack is detected and we instantly and automatically enter a completely different state. This switching of mental gears is what he calls the detection response, and it typically only lasts a few seconds, similar to Dr. Shwartz’s freeze reaction. We hear stories of people who have gone through assault, accidents, or experienced war, and in those stories, there are many times people will claim that they froze or their mind went blank. When the freeze response lasts longer than a few seconds, detection progresses to the shocked freeze. During this stage, our brains aren’t generating any options, let alone any to act on.
When our minds start to leave the shocked freeze state, rational thought is extremely limited. Without specific training on how to overcome this response, many people can’t think of options that aren’t a lose-lose. This is the no-good-choices freeze reaction that prevents many victims from fighting back or escaping the danger. Victims are often judged for not reacting in ways we believe they should have, but when biology overwhelms and cancels rational thought, there’s very little they could have done. Have you experienced a freeze reaction? How were you able to overcome it?
