fight, flight, freeze, and fawn
- lxrynwxtring
- Sep 30, 2022
- 6 min read
9/30/22
hello cherubs! today we are going to be discussing the trauma responses of fight and flight, along with freeze and fawn.
When we experience any kind of trauma, we can respond to the threat in various ways to cope. We are all familiar with the fight or flight response, but there are actually four main trauma responses, which are categorized as “the four F's of trauma”: fight, flight, freeze and fawn.
First, there’s fight-or-flight, the one you’re probably most familiar with. In basic terms, when you encounter a threat, you either resist or retaliate, or simply flee.
Maybe you’ve also heard this called fight, flight, or freeze. You can think of the freeze response as something akin to stalling, a temporary pause that gives your mind and body a chance to plan and prepare for your next steps.
But your response to trauma can go beyond fight, flight, or freeze.
The fawn response, a term coined by therapist Pete Walker, describes (often unconscious) behavior that aims to please, appease, and pacify the threat in an effort to keep yourself safe from further harm.
The fight or flight response is an automatic physiological reaction to an event that is perceived as stressful or frightening. The perception of threat activates the sympathetic nervous system and triggers an acute stress response that prepares the body to fight or flee.
The sympathetic nervous system functions like a gas pedal in a car. It triggers the fight-or-flight response, providing the body with a burst of energy so that it can respond to perceived dangers. The parasympathetic nervous system acts like a brake.
“The fight or flight response, or stress response, is triggered by a release of hormones either prompting us to stay and fight or run away and flee,” explains psychologist Carolyn Fisher, PhD. “During the response, all bodily systems are working to keep us alive in what we've perceived as a dangerous situation.”
In response to acute stress, the body's sympathetic nervous system is activated by the sudden release of hormones. The sympathetic nervous system then stimulates the adrenal glands, triggering the release of catecholamines (including adrenaline and noradrenaline).
The fight-or-flight response plays a critical role in how we deal with stress and danger in our environment. When we are under threat, the response prepares the body to either fight or flee. The fight-or-flight response can be triggered by both real and imaginary threats.
While the fight-or-flight response happens automatically, that doesn't mean that it is always accurate. Sometimes we respond in this way even when there is no real threat. Phobias are good examples of how the fight-or-flight response might be falsely triggered in the face of a perceived threat.
The flight response can be defined as getting away from the situation as quickly as possible.
A flight response, in short, is characterized by the desire to escape or deny pain, emotional turmoil, and other distress.
flight responses can be healthy or unhealthy. An unhealthy flight response may be to become a workaholic to avoid confrontation, while a healthy flight response may be to exit an unhealthy relationship.
Healthy flight responses can include being able to disengage from harmful conversations, leave unhealthy relationships, remove yourself from physical danger, and properly assess danger.
harmful flight response can be shown in many ways, but some are more obvious than others:
workaholic
over-thinker
anxiety, panic, OCD
difficulty sitting still
perfectionist
The fight response can be defined as pure self-preservation.
This response tends to stem from the unconscious belief that maintaining power and control over others will lead to the acceptance, love, and safety you need but didn’t get in childhood, according to Walker
An unhealthy fight response may result in increased aggressive behavior, while a healthy fight response may be the desire to set and maintain healthy relationship boundaries.
Healthy fight responses can include establishing firm boundaries, being assertive, finding courage, becoming a strong leader, and protecting yourself and loved ones.
harmful fight responses can include:
anger outbursts
controlling
"the bully"
narcissistic
explosive behavior
along with fight and flight, we also have freeze and, the lesser known, fawn.
The freeze response can be defined as pausing instead of running.
The freeze response serves as a stalling tactic. You brain presses the “pause” button but remains hypervigilant, waiting and watching carefully until it can determine whether fleeing or fighting offers a better route to safety.
Some experts have pointed out this response actually takes place first, before you decide to flee or fight. And when either action seems less than feasible? You might then “flop” in response to your fright.
what is the 'flop' response?
Your body might go limp. You might even dissociate or faint, which could appear to benefit you in the moment:
If you pass out, you don’t experience the trauma directly.
If you dissociate, you might feel removed or mentally disconnected from the situation, or fail to remember it fully.
If you go limp, the person attacking or abusing you might use less force or even lose interest completely. As a result, you might find it easier to get to safety.
Of course, flopping (also known as tonic immobility) isn’t exactly a good thing, though it does serve some purpose.
It can leave you completely numb, unable to move or call out for help. Plus, while it might seem helpful to lack memories of abuse, those blank spaces can still cause emotional distress.
Healthy freeze responses can include mindfulness, awareness, and full presence in the moment.
harmful freeze responses appear as:
difficulty making decisions
stuck
dissociation
isolating
numb
The fawn response can be defined as keeping someone happy to neutralize the threat.
Walker identified a fourth trauma response through his experiences helping survivors of childhood abuse and trauma.
This response, which he termed “fawning,” offers an alternate path to safety. You escape harm, in short, by learning to please the person threatening you and keep them happy.
Healthy fawn responses can include compassion for others, compromise, active listening, and a sense of fairness
fawn response can be seen as:
people pleaser
lack of identity
no boundaries
overwhelmed
codependent
The first step in managing any response awareness—we must feel to heal. Often, these four types of trauma responses, if they manifest as unhealthy responses, can keep us stuck. But, by becoming aware of them, we can understand them and learn how to make them work for us and not against us.
When you learn how to mind-manage a trauma response when triggered, you can choose what will work best for you to help you get through the situation.
1. Gather awareness of your trauma response.
What are your emotional warning signals?
What are your physical warning signals?
What are your behavioral warning signals?
Which of the four f’s of trauma, or what combination, are you in?
2. Reflect
What is the pattern you have developed to cope with your trauma? What are you doing and how are you responding specifically?
Does your response serve you well in your relationships?
Do you need to change it?
Where is the trauma that this response is coming from? (It’s ok if you can’t answer that now, it’s good enough to know it’s a response to an underlying cause. You can work on this separately over 63 day cycles to find the roots of the trauma and embrace, process and reconceptualize them).
3.Write
Write what you have gathered and reflected on to help organize your thinking.
4. Recheck
Look at what you have written, and see if you can reconceptualize the trauma response, - that is, shift it to a healthy response - by finding what I call the “antidote”. For example, you can say something like “This place still makes me sad, but it doesn’t hurt anymore; I don’t see myself as the one who is always being left; rather, I am the one who was willing to stay.”
5. Active reach
What is an anchoring action or statement you can quickly do and say to yourself when a trauma response is triggered? For example, you can say something like “I am going to put on my imaginary suit of armor, practice deep breathing to control my panic, and then I am going to stop pacing, sit down and assess the situation to see what has made me panic. I will ask someone I trust to help me, like a therapist or counselor.”
just remember, these are NORMAL responses to daily life. it's our job to help normalize and get used to them(:
THIS IS NOT MY OWN INFORMATION
here are the links to the website that I ever so kindly borrowed for this information:
and good ol' google(: for basic definitions and such
I hope you guys like this one! sort of different, because a lot of the information came from other places (hence the sources listed above) but normalizing these trauma responses was something I really wanted to put out there.
I'll see you guys in the next one!
xx Loryn
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