The freeze and shutdown responses to trauma can resemble each other . . .
. . . but they are very different in terms of what’s happening in your client’s brain, body, and nervous system.
And that means they require different grounding strategies as well.
In this infographic, we lay out some key cues to help you distinguish between these two defensive responses.
Click the image to enlarge
Freeze and collapse both involve the inability to move. But while they might appear similar, they are very different physiological responses to stress and trauma. Here are some key differeneces:
Freeze
- The client is HYPERaroused.
- The muscles are tense and full of energy, but can’t release it
- In this stage, there are siilar levle sof sympathetic and parasympathetic activation
- The client might say, “I feel stuck,” “I can’t move,” or “I feel like I am encased in cement.”
- Eyes widen
- The body is ready to return to fight/flight as soon as the threat asses.
Shutdown/Collapse
- The client is HYPOaroused.
- The muscles are flaccid and loose
- The parasympathetic nervous system is dominant
- Decreased heart rate/blood pressure/temperature
- The client might not be able to speak at all
- Sensory info stops at the thalamus. It does not reach the cortex (so it’s not integrated). The client is less aware of their internal and external world.
- The body is ready to return to fight/flight as soon as the threat asses.
- Endorphins release to numb pain. Endorphins release, which canake the client feel detached from their body.
- Can result in fainting
Knowing the differences between these two responses can help you determine which therapeutic strategies you should use with a given patient.
(If you’re sharing this infographic, please attribute it to NICABM. We put a lot of work into creating these resources for you. And if you’re sharing this digitally, please link back to this page in your attribution. Thanks!)
In the Advanced Master Program on the Treatment of Trauma, we dive into three less understood defensive responses to trauma (beyond fight-flight-freeze) and walk you through how to work with each one.
To join, sign up here.
What strategies have you found most helpful for working with the shutdown response? Please let us know by leaving a comment below.
If you found this helpful, here are a few more resources you might be interested in:
How to Overcome the Freeze Response
Working with the Freeze Response in the Treatment of Trauma with Stephen Porges, PhD
[Infographic] – Four Key Ways Collapse/Submit Can Present in a Client
When I was younger, from 6 years on I fainted sometimes without any obvious reasons. I guess it had to do with intense fear of human beings (strangers, groups and even close relatives). I was wondering if this is what you wrote about dynorphin? Could you explain more about this? I dissociated a lot as a child. To be honest I liked this impression of my environment not beeing real and being cut of. As many people tell me that they do not like this feeling, I was wondering if I enjoyed it because I did not want to live? I would appreciate your impulses on this.
Hi, I’m not be able to cry properly for more than 2 years ,I have depression and anxiety for so long .my question is why I can not cry even though I’m very very very sad . Pls tell me .thank u so much ,Sarah Australia
Hi Sarah
I/m not sure how old your question is but I just saw it now (:
I also don’t cry easily anymore. Is it perhaps that you fear if you start crying you will never stop/or be very overwhelmed?
Sometimes it can help to watch a sad movie or listen to sad music.
Many anti-depressants make it difficult to access our tears.
But there’s also no rule to say you have to cry.
I hope some of your sadness can lift for you
Have a beautiful day x
I agree almost totally with this one. But there is a hypo-freeze state too. This is the lower energy version. The subject is still alert, but doesn’t have the instant response capability. I do this lots when I’m in a crowd. I am calm as a clam, but I am very aware where all the exits are. I’m continuously watching, doing threat assessments. But I am NOT hyper. Heart rate is normal to slightly sub normal (about 60) breathing is a bit deeper and faster than normal. Emotionally I’m somewhat hypo, low level of Window of Tolerance. Verbally I’m quiet. I don’t want to be distracted by conversation.
The animal analog of this is a german shepherd or border collie on guard duty.
Is it possible that some of your symptoms might be altered by medication? Heart medications can control your heart rate and blood pressure. Some antidepressants and benzos can affect your physical and emotional responses to stressful or anxiety provoking situations. It sounds like a pretty desirable state to be in, if you suffer from PTSD or social anxiety AND have to deal with that situation. A heart rate around 60 for someone who is hypervigilant or paranoid in a crowded space sounds impossible without a pacemaker 😉
is tonic immobility freeze or shut down or a combination? what about when dissociation is involved? can you freeze and dissociate or is it always with shutdown?
Does depression mean one’s nervous system is in a state of shutdown?
Hey right up there in this paragraph it says it’s free to watch but when I go there it wants a credit card number. That’s not free
I think no. as a person who have experienced depression as well as the collapse/submit/freeze response, the latter presents depression as one of the symptoms but it’s treatment resistant. Antidepressants do little or no difference to a shutdown state. I have read in another nicabm article that both shutdown and depression have different neural pathways.
Could you please share your sources for the dynorphin release in relationship to the disassociation in case of shutdown? I just experienced this after massive bloodloss in the hospital, and I would like to understand the mechanism better. Mine was not brought on by a mental panic state, but a physical state of lack of blood volume, and was almost instantly reversed by blood transfusions and saline IV’s.
Thank you.
I think the DSM says to look at mental health when you don’t have a physical/medical explanation… You’re describing hypoxia due to anemia from blood loss and altered level of consciousness due to hypovolemic shock. This isn’t the same as dissociation, even though it might feel similar.
what are the sources/references for this distinction? And how do you go about treating them (differently)?
How does this apply to a person with the condition POTS autonomic nervous system disorder? Is it possible that these methods might help a person with this health condition stabilize themselves ? I have gastroparesis that looks like it might be caused from that . I want to do whatever I can to improve my situation. I’d like to help others with what I have learned .
Thank You , Elaine
I was wondering this EXACT same thing!!
Me too
I have only recently seen this type of understanding, although I have described my experience as “shutdown since I was a kid”.
Developmentally I lost somethings that I am always trying to find within myself so that I can function in life.
This has been exhausting and easy to be discouraged and go into shutdown as my normal mode of existence.
At 60 yo feel like I need a good parent to help me develop.
Almost lifetime shut down here too at least that’s my nervous systems preferred way of existing and I am sick and tired of it
I am so glad to hear you describing this shutdown state.I have written about reclamation and vitalization as a means of calling someone gently into contact when they have fallen into `undrawn’ as opposed to withdrawn states. That is, gone beyond despair and given up. Described in my two books, Live Company
and The Thinking Heart. Yours, Anne Alvarez
Also in Alvarez and Reid ( eds) Autism and Personality.
Can you say more about what those techniques are?
I’m someone who experiences both of these.
The only thing that moves me through and out has been jokes.
Seriously.
A good YouTube of funny animals or fart jokes do wonders.
Though avoiding these overwhelm responses in the first place, is ideal… they are truly exhausting.
But when you can’t…
Make them laugh.
tight muscles and hyper aroused…sounds more like sympathetic dominance to me, whereas equal amount of PNS and SNS is like before a big game or race….focus….excited…calm…relaxed…the spring is getting loaded up ready to pounce
how does this apply to individuals who are intreverted intuitive type of personality vs. extraverted type and all the other types that Dr. Carl Jung describes in his psychoanalytic work? How does the unconscious come in to this work in dreams and images that can be a big part in working with the client.
I am a Jungian life coach with a degree in psychology and stress management profiler. I am having hard time wondering how you assess the personality type along with the trauma experience. I find this a very crucial part in working with clients.
I have recently put much thought into how Porges PVT social engagement model serves extroversion. While the Parasympathetic sub diaphragmatic efferents may be relational to introverts. (Gut sense, communication with our microbiome through the second brain with neuropeptides.) So much of over serotonin comes from the enteric nervous system and may relate to sleep and dream state.
I have experienced a freeze as literally frozen ankles up to mid-leg, while quite body aware. It is very hard to warm up after experiencing that manifestation. I thought this was a dysregulated freeze due to overstimulation, but according to your graphic, it appears as a shutdown/collapse?
For me, it is a clue that I need to self-regulate actively like doing Feldenkrais.
I also experience shutdown primarily as an overwhelming feeling of cold that comes about suddenly and completely independent of the external temperature. (Sometimes that cold feeling is my only clue that anything is happening – a clear sign of dissociation.) According to my Fitbit it is accompanied by a substantial drop in heart rate, consistent with hypo- rather than hyperarousal. So even though the immediate sensation is of freezing, the correct categorization is shutdown.
Hi there! I hav been experiencing the same shutdown like response, with same symptoms/feelings as those you describe. Events used to come more often and had greater duration, but working on myself made them nearly vanish. I had a couple the last 4 months. Just wanted to check out with you and see if you are doing fine, and make sure that such symptoms, especially drop in heart rate can indeed be psychogenic.
Best wishes!
Would the shut down/collapse response be considered dissociation? Also, could a freeze or flight response escalate to a shut down response, if the client continues to experience stress? I’m thinking of a client who described becoming very anxious and having a panic attack, and when the stress escalated, she dissociated.
Are you describing me? I go through this exact process, I worry and panic (freez) then if it keeps escalating I dissociate.
I find it helpful to just be with the patient at the time inviting them to listen to my voice as I provide cues for releasing fear while encouraging them to remind themselves of their inner strength and call on that toward the goal of collaborating with the mind and body.
Yet another really helpful, easy to understand handout, thankyou.I love the graphics, people seem to really be able to relate them.
I will be able to share this via the pshycoeducation sessions I have with the angry, afraid, lost teenegers I work with to begin to help them to understand their own responses to certain stimuli, or just when ther repsonses happen.I feel this will really empower them.Thankyou.
I have used 5 finger breathing to help some of my clients move through a shutdown repsponse. Holding each finger seemed to ground them to reconnect to themselves as they breath on each finger contact.
S.M Therapsit and Clinical Supervsior UK.
Thankyou for this information, I am very grateful. I am a therapist and have developed a training programme for managers and staff understanding and managing work related stress and anxiety, and in working in this area for fifteen years there is much trauma; from people’s experiences in the workplace and also the triggering of trauma related to their history. Thankyou and wishing you all the best. S M D
I am working on how to devellop a new concept for working with childern/young people, that does not go to school. Many of them had too littel tuning in from parents. They have been administrated around, instead of beeing met. Thank you so much for this masterclass. I am so glad, that I can serve better, thanks to you! ❤️. Best wishes Kirsten