Most of us have probably heard the word ‘dissociation’ thrown around, but what exactly does it mean? Dissociation is a state of disconnection of our minds from our bodies, usually serving a protective function. When our bodies perceive a threat, they go into one of four states: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn (appease). What sets the freeze response apart from its counterparts is self-efficacy, or a lack thereof. Inherent in the fight, flight, and fawn response is the belief that you are capable of changing the outcome of a threatening situation. In a fight response, there is the belief that you are strong enough to defend yourself in the face of a threat; in a flight response, you believe that you can outrun or outsmart the threat; and in a fawn response, you believe that you can ingratiate yourself into the good graces of a predator, so to speak. However, the fawn response is predicated on the belief that you are not capable of adequately defending yourself, and so resort to inaction.
Why do we go into a freeze response?
In order to change our patterns of dissociation, we must first work to understand its adaptive function. That is, in what ways is our dissociation serving us? As previously mentioned, dissociation typically occurs in the presence of a threat. When our bodies don’t believe that we are going to survive a defensive strategy against a threat, it makes the wise choice to attempt to ally with it. However, our bodies often misinterpret non-threats as a source of danger. For example, it is not uncommon to have the same physiological reaction to taking an exam or going on a first date as encountering a tiger in the wild.
The progression of the fear response
We can think of the activation of fear responses in three stages: trigger, habit (fear response), and reward. An example of a freeze response would be receiving criticism → shutting down → feeling relief from the friction of the interaction. It is most helpful to change this pattern in the first stage by becoming familiar with your triggers, as it is hard to change a pattern while in an activated state. So if, for example, you observe that criticism tends to trigger a freeze response, you can work to practice alternative responses before encountering the trigger to have them more readily available to you. But what happens when just living is the trigger, itself? When you live in a perpetual state of hyperarousal?
This could be due to a number of reasons, most of which link back to trauma. This experience of constant hyperarousal is extremely common in individuals with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (blog post on that soon 👀).
How to shift a freeze response
In order to move out of a perpetual state of hyperarousal, you need to increase your sense of self-efficacy - that is, you need to prove to yourself that you are capable of protecting yourself. You accomplish this by putting yourself in scary situations, such as giving a speech, doing improv, or rock climbing, which ever feels the most fear-provoking to you. Once you are in the feared context, you are forced to prove to yourself through action that you are capable of withstanding the discomfort of the experience. This is called a corrective experience. Corrective experiences allow you to retrain your brain to interpret formerly feared situations as survivable, and eventually neutral.
Are you ready to start exploring your fear response and rewiring your brain? Reach out to one of our clinicians today. We’d love to walk alongside you.
Reference:
Managing the Freeze Response: Dissociation, Emotional Shutdown, and Creating Safety, from the Being Well podcast
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