Most of us are familiar with the common fight or flight responses we experience when we are distressed but when it comes to trauma responses Freeze and Fawn are are also other coping mechanisms. Sometimes these responses develop into PTSD symptoms if not processed and desensitised effectively.
Fight and Flight
Fight and flight are commonly experienced in the heat of an argument. The urge to fight back and defend or get away are primal urges that leave us to yell or run. Defensiveness, contempt, criticism, stonewalling is what Gottman refers to as the four horsemen of the apocalypse, also known as the relationship killers.
Freeze
Freeze is a common response for those for example who experience sexual abuse or assault. The body shuts down in this type of circumstances due to a sense of powerless or a feeling of being trapped. Freeze response can be a sign of dissociation whereby it’s not even possible to voice distress. Understanding how the freeze response can lead to total immobility makes it easier to understand why the victim is unable to remove themselves from the danger at the time it is happening.
Fawn
Fawning is a trauma response whereby the victim panders to their abuser or butters up to the person that has hurt them. In this instance they are also dissociating from their emotions and trying to make good with their opposition. An example of this would be buying a present for their partner when they have been mistreated. The worst case of this would be Stockholm Syndrome whereby the victim sides with their abuser in a court of law. Fawning constitutes the violation of one’s own boundaries caused by a limiting self-belief.
The trauma response will often be dependant on past traumatic or adverse events growing up. If in childhood your emotions were minimised, one may fawn as an unconscious way to receive love. If you take flight in an argument, you may have an anxious attachment style and avoid conflict at all costs. This may be the case if in childhood you experienced conflict as something to fear having watched your volatile parents battle it out. It is equally possible you may become defensive and fight back and it has become a learnt behaviour.
It is important to always identify the limiting belief that keeps you repeating these responses when there is no longer any threat. If someone has been sexually abused, however, it is not uncommon to repeat the freeze response making one a target once again for more abuse. Everyone has their own most common trauma responses, but it is necessary to recognise if they have become problematic or even worse, turned into PTSD symptoms.
Changing the limiting beliefs and processing the traumatic events that create these trauma responses can be done effectively with EMDR therapy.
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