The freeze and shutdown responses to trauma can resemble each other . . .
. . . but they are very different in terms of what’s happening in your client’s brain, body, and nervous system.
And that means they require different grounding strategies as well.
In this infographic, we lay out some key cues to help you distinguish between these two defensive responses.
Click the image to enlarge
If you’d like to print a copy to share, please click here: Color or Print-friendly
(Please be sure to include the copyright information. We put a lot of work into creating these resources for you. Thanks!)
This week we’ll dive into three less understood defensive responses to trauma (beyond fight-flight-freeze) and walk you through how to work with each one in the Advanced Master Program on the Treatment of Trauma. It’s free to watch – you just have to sign up here.
What strategies have you found most helpful for working with the shutdown response? Please let us know by leaving a comment below.
Does depression mean one’s nervous system is in a state of shutdown?
Hey right up there in this paragraph it says it’s free to watch but when I go there it wants a credit card number. That’s not free
Could you please share your sources for the dynorphin release in relationship to the disassociation in case of shutdown? I just experienced this after massive bloodloss in the hospital, and I would like to understand the mechanism better. Mine was not brought on by a mental panic state, but a physical state of lack of blood volume, and was almost instantly reversed by blood transfusions and saline IV’s.
Thank you.
what are the sources/references for this distinction? And how do you go about treating them (differently)?
How does this apply to a person with the condition POTS autonomic nervous system disorder? Is it possible that these methods might help a person with this health condition stabilize themselves ? I have gastroparesis that looks like it might be caused from that . I want to do whatever I can to improve my situation. I’d like to help others with what I have learned .
Thank You , Elaine
I was wondering this EXACT same thing!!
I have only recently seen this type of understanding, although I have described my experience as “shutdown since I was a kid”.
Developmentally I lost somethings that I am always trying to find within myself so that I can function in life.
This has been exhausting and easy to be discouraged and go into shutdown as my normal mode of existence.
At 60 yo feel like I need a good parent to help me develop.
Almost lifetime shut down here too at least that’s my nervous systems preferred way of existing and I am sick and tired of it
I am so glad to hear you describing this shutdown state.I have written about reclamation and vitalization as a means of calling someone gently into contact when they have fallen into `undrawn’ as opposed to withdrawn states. That is, gone beyond despair and given up. Described in my two books, Live Company
and The Thinking Heart. Yours, Anne Alvarez
Also in Alvarez and Reid ( eds) Autism and Personality.
I’m someone who experiences both of these.
The only thing that moves me through and out has been jokes.
Seriously.
A good YouTube of funny animals or fart jokes do wonders.
Though avoiding these overwhelm responses in the first place, is ideal… they are truly exhausting.
But when you can’t…
Make them laugh.
tight muscles and hyper aroused…sounds more like sympathetic dominance to me, whereas equal amount of PNS and SNS is like before a big game or race….focus….excited…calm…relaxed…the spring is getting loaded up ready to pounce
how does this apply to individuals who are intreverted intuitive type of personality vs. extraverted type and all the other types that Dr. Carl Jung describes in his psychoanalytic work? How does the unconscious come in to this work in dreams and images that can be a big part in working with the client.
I am a Jungian life coach with a degree in psychology and stress management profiler. I am having hard time wondering how you assess the personality type along with the trauma experience. I find this a very crucial part in working with clients.
I have experienced a freeze as literally frozen ankles up to mid-leg, while quite body aware. It is very hard to warm up after experiencing that manifestation. I thought this was a dysregulated freeze due to overstimulation, but according to your graphic, it appears as a shutdown/collapse?
For me, it is a clue that I need to self-regulate actively like doing Feldenkrais.
I also experience shutdown primarily as an overwhelming feeling of cold that comes about suddenly and completely independent of the external temperature. (Sometimes that cold feeling is my only clue that anything is happening – a clear sign of dissociation.) According to my Fitbit it is accompanied by a substantial drop in heart rate, consistent with hypo- rather than hyperarousal. So even though the immediate sensation is of freezing, the correct categorization is shutdown.
Would the shut down/collapse response be considered dissociation? Also, could a freeze or flight response escalate to a shut down response, if the client continues to experience stress? I’m thinking of a client who described becoming very anxious and having a panic attack, and when the stress escalated, she dissociated.
I find it helpful to just be with the patient at the time inviting them to listen to my voice as I provide cues for releasing fear while encouraging them to remind themselves of their inner strength and call on that toward the goal of collaborating with the mind and body.
Yet another really helpful, easy to understand handout, thankyou.I love the graphics, people seem to really be able to relate them.
I will be able to share this via the pshycoeducation sessions I have with the angry, afraid, lost teenegers I work with to begin to help them to understand their own responses to certain stimuli, or just when ther repsonses happen.I feel this will really empower them.Thankyou.
I have used 5 finger breathing to help some of my clients move through a shutdown repsponse. Holding each finger seemed to ground them to reconnect to themselves as they breath on each finger contact.
S.M Therapsit and Clinical Supervsior UK.
Thankyou for this information, I am very grateful. I am a therapist and have developed a training programme for managers and staff understanding and managing work related stress and anxiety, and in working in this area for fifteen years there is much trauma; from people’s experiences in the workplace and also the triggering of trauma related to their history. Thankyou and wishing you all the best. S M D
I am working on how to devellop a new concept for working with childern/young people, that does not go to school. Many of them had too littel tuning in from parents. They have been administrated around, instead of beeing met. Thank you so much for this masterclass. I am so glad, that I can serve better, thanks to you! ❤️. Best wishes Kirsten