Reading Levine again, I see that he actually defines 5 stages of trauma.\u00a0 Most of us know that we have an instinct to preserve life that manifests as \u201cfight or\u00a0 flight.\u201d\u00a0 Not many people realize that there\u2019s a \u201cdefault\u201dinstinct that comes into play when fleeing and fighting are both impossible.\u00a0 This is \u201cfreeze,\u201d sometimes called playing possum. But the possum isn\u2019t playing, it\u2019s truly paralyzed.\u00a0 There are many people who feel guilty because they failed to act in a crisis, and don\u2019t realize that they were frozen by instinct, not will.\u00a0 My picture of the instinct to preserve looked like this:<\/p>\n
fight <\u2014> flight
\nfreeze<\/p>\n
Since rereading that chapter by Peter Levine I see that it\u2019s more complex.\u00a0 He actually defines 5 stages: arrest \u2014 flight \u2014 fight \u2014 freeze \u2014 fold.\u00a0 He uses the word \u201carrest\u201d for the first move, the \u201cdefensive orienting response\u201d and reserves \u201cfreeze\u201d for the paralyzed state.\u00a0 You see this first action in people\u00a0 or animals who have been quietly munching or reading and hear a strange noise.\u00a0 They become very still and alert.\u00a0 They may move their eyes or turn their head to scan the environment for danger.\u00a0 If they see no danger, they go back to what they were doing. Arrest\u00a0 \u2014>\u00a0 Flight\u00a0 \u2014>\u00a0 Fight\u00a0 \u2014>\u00a0 Freeze\u00a0 \u2014>\u00a0 Fold<\/p>\n Books that helped me understand this: Robert Scaer, The Body Bears the Burden<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reading Levine again, I see that he actually defines 5 stages of trauma.\u00a0 Most of us know that we have an instinct to preserve life that manifests as \u201cfight or\u00a0 flight.\u201d\u00a0 Not many people realize that there\u2019s a \u201cdefault\u201dinstinct that … Continue reading
\nI believe that the \u201cdefensive orienting response\u201d is behind the phenomenon known as \u201cwhiplash.\u201d\u00a0 Imagine yourself driving through an intersection.\u00a0 Suddenly you see, in the corner of your left eye, a vehicle moving toward you.\u00a0 Before you have a chance to turn your head to see if it\u2019s dangerous, the car hits you.\u00a0 \u201cWhiplash,\u201d that frustrating injury that doesn\u2019t show up on X-rays, that has medical people cruelly telling you it\u2019s all in your head, and your insurance cuts off after 5 visits to a chiropractor that haven\u2019t helped…\u00a0\u00a0 This is a symptom of PTSD.\u00a0 Instinct is still trying to complete the defensive orienting response.
\nThe defensive orienting response is also behind the phenomenon known as \u201chyper-vigilance.\u201d\u00a0 For a person who has been traumatized, when they\u2019ve been startled, look for danger, and don\u2019t see it, they don\u2019t go back to relaxation.\u00a0 Their body continues to tell them that there\u2019s danger around, so they keep looking, searching frantically, because there\u2019s nothing to see.\u00a0 The real danger was in the past.\u00a0 This happened to me the first time I read Waking the Tiger<\/em>.\u00a0 I got to the chapter on the mechanism of hyper-vigilance, read with fascination, only to find myself in a hyper-vigilant state.\u00a0 The book is full of warnings like \u201cif you start to get upset, put the book down and find a therapist.\u201d\u00a0 But I didn\u2019t really get that my experience was evidence for the fact that I had been traumatized.\u00a0 I took the book to my regular therapist, but she didn\u2019t have the skills to help me.\u00a0 I was in that hyper state for months.\u00a0 What finally calmed me down was medication, a tranquillizer in addition to the anti-depressant I was already taking.
\nThe untraumatized reaction to danger, when the defensive orienting response has shown that there is a real danger, is to run.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t run, you turn to fight. If\u00a0 fight makes no sense \u2014 say the predator is much larger than you, or the danger is in the form of an abusive parent who your life depends on \u2014 then you freeze. This may result in the predator going away, in which case you survive.\u00a0 Or you get eaten while you\u2019re unconscious, which isn\u2019t too bad as deaths go.\u00a0 If the reptilian brainstem, which is responsible for instinctive behavior, concludes that you are going to die, you enter the fifth stage which is loss of the will to live.\u00a0 Levine calls it \u201cfold\u201d, I call it collapse.<\/p>\n
\nPeter Levine, Waking the Tiger<\/a>
\nIn an Unspoken Voice<\/a><\/p>\n