Strategies to Treat Patients Trapped in the Freeze Response
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with Bessel van der Kolk, MD;
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with Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Stephen Porges, PhD; Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD; Pat Ogden, PhD; Thema Bryant-Davis, PhD; Bethany Brand, PhD; Deb Dana, LCSW; Janina Fisher, PhD; Kathy Steele, MN, CS; Ruth Buczynski, PhD
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This is a learning community for practitioners. We can’t wait to hear what you’re going to use with your clients
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I’ll certainly use the oximeter. The presentation was excellent.
In deep gratitude, Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Thank you for making this available for free.
I appreciate having this information. Being aware that patients can move into the freeze response with us is so helpful to know. The signs to watch for including: shallow breathing, tension in the body, hyper alertness, and their posture going up are things I will keep an eye out for. Also, I like to know that I have tools available if this happens with a client. I feel more confident that I can deal with this when it comes up. I especially liked the micro interventions such as having the client move their eyes to the left or right as far as they can and moving their little finger. I will also use the idea of finding safe objects in the room to focus on and describe. I will make sure to have some safe types of objects in the room.
I would like feedback on what professionals think about a diagnosis of ADHD versus trauma. I work with Native Americans & it appears that most of the children & adults I work with have a history of trauma. Many of the children are diagnosed with ADHD. I see a lot of similarities of ADHD symptoms seem to match some symptoms of trauma.
Hello Mary,
I’m not sure it’s an either/or. My neurologist told me that ADHD is a common consequence of the impact of childhood stress and trauma on brain development.
Respectfully,
Alice
Are you familiar with ADDitudemag.com? This is a great resource for all questions ADD, and is run by doctors and psychiatrists. Go there and type your questions in the search window and you will get some great insights into what you are describing here!
Cindy, I will check that one too… maybe I will find some newbies there too. thank you for mentioning!
Interesting point as I also believe many diagnosed with ADHD is trauma related (trauma that is trapped within the cellular memory, compounded by individual predisposition).
I am really seeing that My nervous system has to be the “Check Engine Light” of the relationship with my students. They may have no idea how to name their feelings or their arousal states. By naming my own and showing them how to sit with and process these feelings, I can help them learn how.
Also, I was really struck by this:
Dr. Bryant-Davis: “When we start to ask clients a question about where they feel that or what
they feel in their bodies, when a client says, “I don’t
know,” or “I don’t understand the question,” there can
be multiple factors that lead people to either not
understand the question or to feel nothing.
And so for some people, it is just a foreign idea, right?
That, they’re used to people saying, “How are you?” Or
even, “How are you feeling?” But I would say they’ve
never been asked that before, so it doesn’t make sense
to them. So we want to be able to distinguish
between, “I literally don’t understand the question
because it’s never been asked of me,” and “I was not aware that feelings are in the body. I
either just feel sad or happy or afraid, but I have never connected that with my body.” So it’s
like a new frame, a new perspective.”
Often, my students say “I don’t know…” with their heads down, eyes at the ground, and their voices are barely a whisper. It is my role to then help them discover if it is something they don’t know because they have never experienced it, or if it is something they don’t know because nobody has asked them before and their communication skills are not developed in how to explain themselves.
Thank you very much for making this very valuable information available to me in this format. I like time to reflect and digest the content, I have no doubt the Gold Package is well worth the investment but I am delighted that you have generously shared it with me. I attended the Trauma Summit in Belfast four years ago but was overwhelmed with all the information – this is allowing me to revisit the information. I look forward to the remaining 4 modules. A big ‘Go raibh maith agat’ to Ruth and NICABM from Ireland 🇮🇪
I am using my information to help my adult grand child who has all three areas of disability but is intelligent and researches his symptoms to help him understand what is going on.
Our medical system in the US is difficult to deal with in terms of helping disabled people with navigating all the paperwork and communications (or lack thereof).
This series is also helping three generations of us (including me) who are all survivors of sexual abuse.
This is so helpful for so many reason’s as I listened to all of what was said and taught for my Perisheners, as well as myself.
Thank you so much for sharing such wisdom. These techniques are so important for those of us in the field doing this kind of work. I’m appreciative of the explanations, examples, and descriptions of application.
It validates the work I’m doing and gives me energy to keep doing it!
🙏
I love being a part of this community as sensorimotor therapy becomes the new wave of our work. It’s uplifting, respectful, concrete, and positive. Thank you for today’s consise and remarkably effective teaching. I have two clients this afternoon who will profit from the my increasing competence and confidence .
This first presentation reminded me of new processes and ahas I have had since the old NICABM series. I have started to do an intake which makes clients connect the body and mind via the written word, without flawing or confronting what they are doing. These are not usually folks who know they are frozen–in fact they are in denial that they are frozen, but want to feel better both physically and emotionally. That’s key.
So one process is BEFORE the session, I have them scan a considerable list of somatic feelings and emotions which they then circle, if at this moment they apply, and also if these are ongoing…. example: irritable, mobile, calm, hyper, chilly, relaxed. They do the same thing AFTER the session (and it will have changed in some ways). The scan comparison of before and after is very revealing (beyond the story). This practice came out of realizing that clients do not know how to express somatic feelings.
I would like one of these pulse oximeters!
hi Elain, just read your reaction post… that is a great idea to have the cliënt scan a list… do you perhaps have an exemple of such a form or cheatsheet I can use? would be handy!
greetings, Ellen Battjes the Netherlands
Considering emotions are instinctive reactions, it’s illogical to make the leap to thoughts being in the body in the same way. We are, in fact, quite terrible at even naming our emotions beyond some pretty basic flavours.
Now that I’ve disagreed with you, how do you feel? Anger? (Do you feel tension in your chest, shortness of breath, clenching of fists?) Disdain? (A snort? An irrepressible urge to roll your eyes? Tension in your legs as you get ready to just walk away?) Humour? (Warmth? Release of tension?)
At any rate, perhaps it’s true that you don’t feel emotions in your body. That doesn’t mean others don’t. It doesn’t have to be true for you in order for it make sense, does it?
I intend to use it with working to protect my elderly mother. By using the tools of respecting the trauma and waiting patiently for when things are calmer, not trying to touch or calm my sister with mental illness who has the legal control of my mom as of being discharged from the hospital. I will use it to think about how to help all without further damaging our relationships or increasing the trauma we all have as a result of the wrong patterns of interaction.
This is so useful for me personally. I wish I could share this information with all medical professionals in the NHS (UK), as well as teachers, law enforcement, etc. But at that price, it’s not viable. Would you consider rolling out something simpler to a much wider group on request?
Many many thanks for making these sessions available!
This is so useful for me personally. I wish I could share this information with all medical professionals in the NHS (UK), as well as teachers, law enforcement, etc. But at that price, it’s not viable. Would you consider rolling out something to a much wider group?
Great session. It validated and gave the theoretical background to some things I was doing with my clients instinctively.
I mainly work with clients with an disability (cognitive and physical). Unfortunately those with a disability are more prone to been abused or traumatized in some form or another, Currently I am working with a client who regress when he is stressed. He defecates , urinates all over the house , becomes agitated and plays with his faeces. We are trying to figure out the triggers. After listening to today’s session , I have some ideas how to move forward with him.
I enjoyed today’s session so much, I bought the gold package even though I am a bit tight for money. I thought oh well, I can listen and repeat the sessions as I need so , well worth it!!!
Thanks you for offering this free
I’m an educator and a parent, so I am looking at “freeze” through that lens, particularly in trying to understand how best to create trauma-informed learning spaces. But much of this certainly resonated for me on a personal level, as I realize how much of my childhood was coloured by shaming and gaslighting.
I’m really interested in what constitutes “trauma”, since my instinct has always been to classify my personal experience more as “normal adversity”.
Be that as it may, as I train adults on how to teach other adults, it’s useful to take a deep dive into what various stress responses look like. We already teach them about how the brain can’t learn anything new when it’s in a “fight, flight, freeze” state, which was discussed in this broadcast within the first 2 minutes! I especially appreciate the distinction between escapable or inescapable danger and am looking forward to diving deeper into the additional stress responses.
No word to express my deepest gratitude for your benovelence of sharing the wisdom of how to allow people to get out of their trauma struck body to present moment with compasion and care. Thank you for enriching me as a person and as a helper.
I watched this session for the second time so I could better grasp all the information. A wonderful session, grateful for the access to it. I love the positive reframing of the freeze response, the way it can be seen as having been useful for protection and maybe survival. Thank you all.
This was very informative. I am actually an educator and shamanic energy medicine practitioner … and I am linking what I already do in my sessions — with what has shown to work for the experts in trauma – somatic therapies and theory. Also, learning additional strategies and knowledge.
Thank you,
Paula Petry, PhD
thank you so much – really informative and helpful. you put into words what we witness all the time and thus gave us tools to further help our clients. thank you
I am a psychology/counseling student, behavioral health associate (support person) and a trauma survivor in therapy. This is very useful to me in all of those areas! Truly wish I could afford to gold package and be able to review these valuable sessions
Adding another thought:
Because I have a penchant for prime time TV shows with some substance, I’ve noticed “teaching by example” going on that falls directly in line with the underlying principles touched on in this session. “Let me talk with them….” from a first responder who responds to the emotion of the situation, for example.
My grandmother was a remarkable woman who earned her BA when fewer than 1% of women in the USA had that opportunity. When I was a child, she used to say “Did you see that?” That alerted me to what was happening in front of me and was also a signal that we would talk about the situation later.
I’d really like to see NICABM put together a series directly targeting the general public with a focus on “best practices” for teachers, parents, employees and employers who also want to change the course of civilization by choosing good approaches to our interactions with others!
Oooh, yes, I love the idea of a series that is targeted for us “others”. 🙂
Thank you for such a useful overview of issues & solutions about the freeze response to trauma. The distinction made in the session about trauma that can be escaped via fight or flight VS chronic, inescapable trauma was helpful & validating. The insight that children can’t fight or flee from a traumatising parent/parents or those responsible for their wellbeing is crucial – dependency on the ‘parent’ by children for physical and emotional security is pretty much complete & absolute. As a consequence, an impact of the freeze response (a valid strategy that enabled survival) can be that the traumatised child, now an adult, remains frozen in a situation where the traumatising parent is still in charge. I have found it effective to work along lines that Pat Ogden described, enabling traumatised adults to realise that childhood is now over, and therefore the dependency on the traumatising parent figure is also over. This can help ‘defrost’ the traumatised adult. I look forward to learning more about healing trauma via bodywork & other non-verbal means.
The non eye contact is a Big one!
Not hugging them is another
Asking if are they grounded, feet on the floor.
Always remember to breathe
Your awesome
Diana North
Changing the course of civilization indeed!
Please accept my ongoing gratitude that NICABM is continuing to share this coming together (synthesis) of research, knowledge, experience, observation of self and others – all for “the common good.”
BRAVO!
Thank you! I will be more aware that silence could equal freeze and give that some space and compassion. I also liked helping the client complete the movement- powerful. Continuous breathing is good too.
As a pastoral counselor involved in spiritual guidance this is very helpful for me in recognizing when a person needs referral to a therapist for more specialized needs. It’s very helpful to know this referral needs to be approached gradually in a safe relationship so the person can recognize their own need. This info also help me recognize the confidence I can have in my own body resonance as I meet with persons. It very mush compliments the training I’ve had in BioSpiritual Focusing, based on the work of Eugene Gendlin. Thank you so much for making this available for those of us unable to afford the purchase.
Marie S
I am amazed by the first part. I am going to be putting into practice what I have learned here with my 21 year old daughter.
Thank you so much.
Wonderful session! This was so helpful. Thank you!
Wonderful first class! I am a therapist and not currently in a position to purchase the Gold Package, but would highly recommend that anyone who is in that position do so! The way the video is edited is so useful! I particularly appreciate the narration and cut-in style. It helps me to better take in the information to receive it and then have it reviewed, right away.
What I took from today that I will use with my patients:
– The nodding/head shake and looking to the right/left to help begin unlocking the freeze.
– Describing three things in my office (and I love the idea of reinforcing the same items as grounding totems over time—it seems to me that these could become images the patient carries internally for use between sessions).
– Definitely going to follow-up regarding pulse/ox!
So glad I got up early to do this! I’m not known for my bright alertness at 7AM (I live in Alaska), but this turned out to be a wonderful way to start the day! Y’know… in my pajamas. 😉
Alice C Richmond
I’m am enjoying wonderful insight in this course. I am spiritual counselor and just finished my training. I’m about to work in this field. Seeing professional therapists and how they work with freeze is been very important.
Unfortunately I was not able to access day 2 I couldn’t get into to see it under my JGavroy@Gmail account, I then created an acct with bpafrosty1@gmail.com, I then gained access to watch the first video on the freeze again. I was not able to watch the 2nd video on the dissociation. Is there anyway you could please let me see it? Thank you all so very much for your work.
I work as a cognitive therapist and trauma informed care trainer for homeless / substance dependent people, and their peer-support / lived experience workers, in a high deprivation area of England. All of today’s session will contribute most positively to my work which focusses on dismantling trauma in the present time – using autonomic vagus nerve understanding and its consequent frequent ‘freeze’ response, so common in my client group. Thank you!
Brian E. Ward MSc.
This was wonderful!I am a counseling student currently and appreciate you offering this for free. It is such a gift! I am very intrigued by the tips on helping a person to be attuned to their body and use it to get out of freeze mode. Thank you!
So valuable in showing how connection to emotions are embodied. I teach meditation and conscious awareness to clients, and a huge part of my curriculum is noticing any sensation caused by thought, imagery and body movement. I am intending this course will help me impart the cognitive aspect of cause and effect. My motto is “What we resist, persists. What we feel, we can heal”
This gave me more strategies to teach my clients what to do when they experience the freeze response. Can’t wait to share these with them!
Thank you! It was informative and I have gained insight and knowledge about the freeze response!
Thank you so much in helping to describe the purpose of the freeze response, what it looks like, what triggers it and what to do and not do to help a client get out of it.
I acquired a lot of helpful information about how to recognize and address my clients’ freeze responses. I also received detail information about the freeze response which I can share with clients to help them understand what has happened to them in the traumatic moment and following.
I’m a patient and I found this session very helpful. I’m going to encourage my therapist to sign up for this training. Thanks
Very enriching! I can see myself using these techniques towards freeze reactions even with a preventive approach, before it might happen totally.
Magnificent. So much presented so clearly, calmly, and comprehensively. thank you!!
That was so wonderful and insightful! Already looking forward to the next session. Thank you so much everyone!
Thank you. This webinar was incredible helpful
Wonderful, thank you so much. Fascinating and absolutely applicable to practice. I look forward to part 2!
Excellent and informative training, so helpful, thank you.
This was so helpful to me personally and professionally, thank you!
Thank you . I have really enjoyed this training and so happy to see this important information being widely disseminated to dismantle the oppression of trauma .
Wonderful session. Thank you