How to Work with Emerging Defense Responses to Trauma (Beyond the Fight/Flight/Freeze Model)
with Pat Ogden, PhD; Stephen Porges, PhD; Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Janina Fisher, PhD; Kathy Steele, MN, CS; Deb Dana, LCSW; Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD; Thema Bryant-Davis, PhD; Ruth Buczynski, PhD
Sign up for the Gold Package
We want you to get better outcomes from having invested your time and continuing education dollars into watching this program. What are you going to do differently after watching this module?
Today I watched without taking notes – I think it was easier to take in the insights and connect them experience – On the other hand, taking notes was better for having a way to remember the material – I am thinking that it could be a right brain left brain difference – Ideally watching without note taking the first time would be good, than going back and taking notes. (I normally have been a good note taker, in lecture situations, but being able to watch closely is better with these videos.)
Thank you very much for making them available!!
PS, I wrote this about the Thursday session
I’m thinking of furthering my education in the helping professions. I have experience with Gestalt Pastoral Care therapy through a personal connection to its founder,Tilda Norberg, however I recently learned about IFS, it’s far reaching positive effects for people with D.I.D. and CPTSD is phenomenal. The contribution it has made towards lessening the stigma of the population carrying these burdens is appreciative. Richard Schwartz has captured my attention and heart!
Good stuff!
This is having me wonder about trauma responses of being independent/self-sufficient…capable…not needing others.
And then the people these self-sufficient ones tend to be in relationship with—those who don’t generate much, but go along. They don’t generate much. And may hide their intentions and behaviors from their partner.
Pay closer attention to the voice of attachment cry for help and strive for a balance of holding boundaries without being rigid. This session in particular was so helpful. Thank you!
Thankful for this opportunity to learn more about the current understanding of these trauma defenses!
Instead of feeling frustrated with people who are stuck, I can see that they may be in one of several trauma responses. This will help me attune to my own nervous system and the energy I’m receiving from theirs. I think I’ll listen more and be more curious. This is so valuable to me as a student.
Best intervention, first tune into my own nervous system and let the other know. Valuable piece of information: when we mis-attune it triggers further fear of harm. The safest practice is getting on the same page with clients. I like Dana’s idea of educating clients about the dorsal, ventral, and vagal responses have different affects on the other’s nervous system. Practicing with each other help create awareness of how that NO may land in my body and visa vera. Practicing what is a healthy YES and a healthy NO.
Living with someone who has dangerous behaviours, they perfected “please and appease” – their nervous system’s way of surviving the situation…. It seems that sometimes these responses can be blended in a person’s way of negotiating situations. I have a client who was in a cult and got into trouble for fighting with the leader, but now feels completely shut down in life… I’m thinking they may have perfected shut down, or please and appease, having various responses until coming to shut down, then managing to run away, but still feeling shut down.
It was incredible to watch this free session- my first! The distinction I got between the 3 nervous states was pure gold – sympathetic (fight/ flight), the dorsal (freeze) and the third state of please appease (fawn response). That it is a sophisticated maladaptive state that prioritizes survival… and my insight was that is is so widespread among the general population because many (most?) have sufficient embodiment in their physical/ emotions/ nervous systems to not live in the extremes of fight/ flight or freeze but have their own unique set of fawn/ please – appease behaviors. That is almost the norm for where people function. As a teacher knowing that helps me to stay aware of the fawn behaviors and the shame responses (next session!) whenever I am helping students. At a personal level, I am playing out freeze behavior that I did not have space for as a child – which looks like total dysfunction/ inactivity on the outside. As a child, my nervous system was thrown into fight/ flight to cope with life. Later on as I learnt to cope better with life I gradually took on more fawn (please- appease) behaviors, based on the innate desire of a child to please. However anything that required effort drove me to fight/ flight because I needed the cortisol to function! Now I am allowing my freeze response consciously and working from Self with Parts to reintegrate those early parts into the system, to have a more healthily integrated nervous system, rather than one split into the the conscious parts and the suppressed/ denied parts running the show.
Lastly tuning into my own nervous system when relating to my students is such a valuable tool, as that is actually in many ways the best barometer of what my students are feeling, when I have access to Self energy in the midst of activated parts. Thank you for this incredible series and for the free sharing… your work is deeply appreciated!
Wow! Excellent session. So many of my patients came to mind…and how none of us are aware of any of the feelings a patient may be having underneath their presenting behavior. They might just be acting “compliant” in order to feel safe! They might be flaccid and slumped over because they’ve given up and can’t face life and see no other way to “be”. I’ve also had a patient get mad at me for no reason which was strange but of course many of these people have faced very traumatic events in their lives so they wont interact with others like someone who hasnt. I wish our employer could offer more training on how to interact with survivors of trauma. Thankyou for your Trauma series!
the more I think I know, the more I realise learning is a lifelong journey, very informative & I look forward to the next lecture, Regards Craig In QLD Australia (studying counselling)
Thema Bryant important provides insights not available from others.
My main question here is actually how this fits in with dissociation. Is the dorsal vagal state what is activated in dissociation or are these two states completely separate?
Good question! Hopefully, someone from NICABM will see it and respond!
Please and appease is detrimental in the therapeutic setting and now I know how to help a client to stop needing to do with me.
I as a psychotherapist deeply appreciate and resonate with the knowledge shared by experts and its so application oriented. it has attuned me to finer aspects of counselling. This knowledge will certainly add to the depth and richness to the quality of counselling service I offer. I sincerely thank the organizers for the effort of putting together this masterclass and adding value to practitioners in helping profession. Much as I would like to enroll in the Gold Package, currently in Indian INR terms it is not possible.
I will contribute by helping more and more clients which aligns with your value of making this world a better place.
I was amazed by learning about clients who try to please the therapist, and the dangers of encouraging positive feedback for the therapist and how that is transference from the client to the clinician. As a student therapist with Imposter Syndrome, I have felt myself wanting to hear that I am doing a good job. Now I will check myself to make sure I am not doing that…. more self of the therapist work! Thank you for making this available to everyone… I forwarded the sign up to other interns!
I appreciated the idea of working with boundaries from the 3 different vagal states.
I liked hearing more about the attach/cry for help and how to work with it.
I will keep all of this in my mind when with clients allow looking through this lens to inform my interventions. thank you for this course
Again, fascinating stuff. Some of the language was a bit beyond my level of knowledge, but I have jotted these things down and will use them as steppingstones to improving my knowledge and practice. I was very interested in the ‘please And appease’ section as I personally identify with it as a coping strategy within a childhood domestic violence situation. I can see how it has carried through to my adult life and how at times it has affected my responses during confrontational situations. Once again, excited about tomorrow and grateful for this opportunity to expand my knowledge.
Learnt more about the nervous system and attunement and how to help the client with regulation.
Really loved the part about practicing saying “no” from the dorsal, sympathetic, and ventral and then to move on to practicing saying “yes”. What a really great way to apply the theory in a simple, yet so profound and immediately applicable all day long practice that can help folks of many different ages practice self regulation and embodiment.
This has all been so helpful so far. I’m seeing myself, my family members and my clients in these examples.
Part 1 taught me to slow down and notice what is happening in the client’s body. And to invite them to do micro-movements to bring them to presence.
In Part 2 I recognized a particular client who has dissociated herself from her entire childhood and her whole body has symptoms. I especially need to slow down with her.
Part 3 really resonated with me. I saw one client in Attach/Cry for help, another one in Collapse/submit/shut down and most (if not all) women I know in Please/appease. I was reminded that I need to be well regulated before seeing a client.
Fascinating information. i was trained in hypnosis 30 years ago before the polyvagal system was understood. At the time collapse was known as the Walking Zombie Syndrome. We used the term to help the client understand what had happened and how they were living their life because of their trauma. I like learning about the additional states after f/f/f. This is most helpful. i work in an experiential atmosphere so having the client push or scream, or whatever they need to do to reverse the block that has occurred in their nervous system is powerful. Thanks for this session.
Absolutely great and informative. Thank you from Tallahassee, Florida.
We have one precious hour to absorb so many valuable concepts. I wish there was less time spent on being presented with, “what we’re going to learn in this session” and “what we just heard from the expert”, as well as the infomercial on the Gold Package. We have all been presented with the Gold Package option multiple times in the literature/ads. These things take away from the time we could be hearing more information directly from the expert who is explaining a concept.
Thank you for making this available to “regular” folk as well. I find the sessions to be very dense with information, while still quite easy to follow. Hearing from multiple perspectives and experience is very insightful. Thank you, so much, to all of you who participated. I have come such a long way from the little girl who had entire weeks of memory gaps and no coherent thoughts on who I was or how to live life. I identified strongly with the Collapse and Submit response you covered in this session. Some of the clinical stories helped me understand “internal child voices” that sound terrified and desperate when “I” am not. I am inspired now to ask empathetic questions and be patiently curious instead of just feeling helpless.
Blessings on you all.
I’ve read up on the polyvagal nervous system before, but found this video extremely helpful in terms of identifying how to keep things real when I’m helping someone and trying to keep us both relating honestly with each other in the moment. I’m supporting someone right now who fluctuates through these three responses (attach/cry for help, please/appease, collapse/shut down) as a defense mechanism that makes it hard to reach them to help. While you describe these almost like mutually exclusive traits, can you speak more to the complexities of people who can switch between them all, rather seamlessly? Is it because the trauma is so fresh that they haven’t settled into a set pattern, or that the layers of trauma each required different ways of surviving, so they’ve developed specific responses to each cue? I’d love to learn more, thank you.
This segment was the most helpful so far. I saw things about my work with current and past clients that helped me understand what was happening in our sessions. Can’t do anything about the past–where I missed opportunities or dropped the ball. But I can do better with current clients. Thanks! I’m looking forward to the next two modules.
Rather than share how I will work with this in my practice, I would like to pose a question that arose – regarding for instance, the please/appease state relatively fixed in a parent and how this may, in turn, disrupt the child’s interpersonal and intrapersonal development. Or a parent that cycles through the please/appease – collapse/submit – attach – cry for help and perhaps fight/flight …. how is a child’s development affected by this in how they navigate life and develop themselves? Wonder if there is research on this?
Thanks so much for these teachings ! So helpful!
I see these three responses in my young clients each day. It is helpful to name these response, to hear techniques and ideas other therapists are using, to hear how to work with these trauma responses more effectively and creatively, and to really be present to the importance of maintaining one’s own regulation, safety and well-being to effect best practice.
A big thank you!
The most important learning was how to recognize please and appease response and work with them. How I was missing them as trauma response….
Thank you…
I liked tuning in to my own nervous system as well as the client’s. I will use this.
Enlightening session as usual! Shedding new light on these 3 emerging trauma defense responses which on the surface may seem so benign when encountered in clients (or clients living with someone who has embodied these trauma responses) and which mimics other trauma responses, thus presenting opportunity for much deeper diving into somatic approaches, attachment types, the polyvagal theory and vagal responses. Key take aways–the nervous system does not lie AND cues for the therapist/counselor/coach to recognize when we are becoming dis-regulated in a session with a client experiencing these types of trauma defense responses.
This is incredibly enlightening, both as someone who has suffered deep trauma, and for those I seek to help. It makes me wonder, when I was diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression and bipolar, whether my symptoms more closely identified with collapse submit response. I shut down completely for 4 years before gradually resurfacing. Anyway, that was fascinating for me. I am so enjoying your teaching and explanations. It makes so much sense, and I am looking to be more aware of these states and my own as I counsel others.
It is good you survived bad diagnosis from people without knowledge and were able to come out of that protective defense adaptation and heal yourself. NICABM and especially Bessel van der Kolk, Dr. Stephen Porges and Peter Levine might be especially useful for you to learn from.
I too was startled at learning about the robotic obedience reaction. I have recognized that at certain key moments in my life, but had no idea how to think about it clearly. I must’ve mentioned it in some of my various therapies, but I’m not sure. I will mention it to my current therapist! Thank you.
I am grateful for the clarity in these sessions. However, it seems to me that MOST people I know regularly engage in these behaviors as part of their personas. I think trauma is much more prevalent than 25%.
Bessel van der Kolk said recently it is 100% in the U.S. with the most severely abused and neglected are young teen girls.
Hello,
I am a patient. You’re all amazingly describing my life’s path. You’ve given me explanations for my behavior. Names for my behavior. The missing time has always been troubling. Compartmentalizing my personalities, or erasing myself. The information presented I understand is for professionals.
I am grateful for your presentations.
session 3 “how to work with emerging defense responses to trauma” gives profound clinical insight. It is essential for educated therapists to learn about the various defense responses to be effective in providing clinical treatment where actual professionals can take place. This essential knowledge especially applies to providing treatment for clients who are victims of long-term early childhood torture and abuse. Thank you, NICABM team.
I had a challenging session that left me puzzled, and I wondered after today’s module, Can a patient from a collapse state can enact 2 responses in a session; for example, attach/cry and please/appease…
Thank you for these free webinars, as we are doing what we can in our communities, helping ourselves and helping others who seek our assistance – day to day. Change the world for the better!
As a new therapist, I often work with the somatic and see that trauma responses do not respond to words alone. It was very validating to see that echoed here. I think adding in more experiential body experiences when working with the nervous system is a huge thing I will add to my practice.
If there is a way that we can obtain some ability to write a grant for assistance with the program so we can have the CE credits, that would be incredible! I had misunderstood that they could be obtained for $40 if the live sessions were attended from the way it was laid out. If not, the teaching is definitely worth us all being thankful for. Thank you all for giving so much with this!
Thank you so much for letting us read other individuals’ comments since it really ends up helping solidify what we’ve learned each day!