It’s often easy to identify the obvious cues that your client is in freeze . . .
. . . but what about times when the signs are so subtle, you might dismiss it (or even overlook it)?
In the video below, Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD shares how recognizing a more subtle sign of freeze helped her through a sticking point with her client.
Take a look.
It didn’t increase, it didn’t decrease. We were sort of looping and nothing was changing. And I thought, “I wonder whether something else is going on.” And so this was after quite a while, we were probably processing this for about 30 minutes. And then I thought to myself, “I wonder if this tingling is related to a freezing response.” Because I know a lot of my clients, sometimes describe having tingling associated with a freezing response. So I asked her during the trauma processing, “Do you think this tingling may be related to your left arm feeling frozen?” And she said, “Yeah, absolutely.” And I said, “Okay.” I said, “Now I just want you to notice your left arm and just follow your left arm and see whether it wants to engage in the movement at all.” Because of course the goal when you’re in a frozen state or a state of tonic immobility is to get the part of the body moving again.
And so she noticed her left arm and she said, “Yeah, it wants to go like this.” So I said, “Okay, just follow your left arm and just follow the motion it wants to engage in.” And so she did this for a while, just moving her left arm. And then also her right arm started touching the left arm and starting exerting pressure on the left arm. And after about 20 minutes of more trauma processing, those sensations of tingling had resolved. So I think we just have to be really mindful that tingling, which is so often associated with anxiety can also be associated with tonic immobility. And so for me to recognize that allowed the trauma processing to continue. If I hadn’t recognized that we would have just gone in circles.
For more expert strategies for working with the freeze response, check out Strategies to Treat Patients Trapped in the Freeze Response. In it, you’ll hear from experts including Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Stephen Porges, PhD; Pat Ogden, PhD; Thema Bryant, PhD; Janina Fisher, PhD; and more.
Now we’d like to hear from you. What strategies do you use to help clients through a freeze response? Please let us know in the comments below.
Yes! Definitely worthy of noting. Thank you so much.
My curious question is whether the tingling in this example was a current-time freeze response triggered by the trauma memory, or an accessing of cells that have never fully come out of the freeze reponse from past trauma and are finally releasing and dissipating that response. I suspect it could be either. I am a physical therapist specializing in Myofascial Release Therapy. I don’t reach outside of my scope of practice to directly “process trauma” with verbal interactions, but I frequently come across trauma responses held within the tissues. Most of the time clients remain relaxed on the table, while my nervous system picks up subtle cues and mirrors what the tissues are processing. When I sense a cellular level freeze response and it starts to mobilize, it is not uncommon for both myself and my client to be aware of sensations of limb achiness, fatigue, and/or numbness. It’s as if the “stuckness” of the freeze response drags it’s way slowly out of the body. With a license to touch, I have the benefit of using my body’s electrical conductivity to help dissipate the symptoms the client is experiencing. Sometimes my own physical experiences of this work are really wild, but it has me wholeheartedly convinced that there is legitimate biochemistry to stored trauma, and it fuels my desire to learn more!
Beautiful!!
So helpful. I will keep this in mind when working with clients.
Amazing!