How to Work with Emerging Defense Responses to Trauma (Beyond the Fight/Flight/Freeze Model)
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with Pat Ogden, PhD;
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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
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I am a 53-year-old woman who has been treated for depression, anxiety, and now PTSD (meds and therapy for 20+ years now). I missed the first NICABM course, but last week the course on Dissociation really shook me to my core. I dissociate almost every day but didn’t realize how pervasive it was until I attended a family get-together last year with very intentional goals for all of my interactions (due to the dysfunction). I came home and couldn’t recall anything that occurred after dinner for several hours. It was very frightening and disconcerting. I have since realized that I have been dissociating since I was a child in a very emotionally and sometimes (rarely) physically abusive home. I never felt safe. In any case, I’ve decided that my dissociation is something that I need to work through next with my therapist. Thank you for these insights. As for today’s course on “…Beyond Fight, Flight, or Freeze”, I recognized that I freeze, collapse/submit, and please/appease depending upon the situation or people involved. I am choosing to see these as lessons I have not yet learned sufficiently, as opposed to beating myself up about them. Again, thank you for offering these courses free of charge!
Thank you for today’s video as a new counsellorI am grateful to you all for sharing your years of experience and expertise. I think the biggest take away is that there are other trauma responses besides fight flight freeze, and the importance of understanding these and how they may mimic some mental health diagnoses, yet are clearly different. I look forward to broadening my scope of knowledge and feel I have just brushed against the tip of the iceberg. Thank you again.
Yes, I wonder if many or most of the DSM disorders might be reimagined as nervous system responses and the stigma and shame attached to these diagnoses be greatly reduced in this process.
Love this, Michelle! Hear-Hear!
Yes!! I agree as well! Time for total overhaul of this dark-ages mental Heath system!!!
Just as we’re having a physical “holistic Heath” movement in this country that seeks to root out causes and NOT just diagnose, label and “treat” symptoms, we need the same in mental health AND addiction recovery! TOO many people left spinning their wheels and trapped in endless suffering because of the “symptom” approach and NOT truly understanding trauma and how to work beyond JUST the aspect of cognition.
Ruth and company, you are a gift from GOD. I love and appreciate all you do, which you sum up beautifully in your closing message at the end of each session. Thank you. ?
yes, and I also liked the idea of therapy as 2 nervous systems interacting
Not all cries are alike: I found the distinction made between the “survival cry” versus the “reassurance (my term) cry” to be incredibly valuable.
The survival cry indicates a reliving or reexperiencing of a traumatic event: It is a cry for rescue and is defensive in nature. It is not healing-oriented.
The reassurance cry is healing-oriented, and can be viewed as a healthy utilization of available emotionally-supportive resources.
Developing the skill to differentiate between cries will be a crucial first step towards my ability to respond therapeutically when hearing a client “cry.”
This reminds me of a favorite book of mine called “Hope in the Holler” by A. Elaine Brown Crawford, who suggests that hope is the construct that moves us beyond endurance, beyond survival, and into transformation.
Can you say more about how the survival cry has manifested in sessions with clients and how you might respond if that’s what you perceive is going on?
I’m curious if you could provide some examples from your clinical practice of how the former manifest itself and how you might respond?
Thank you NICABM for this generous offering of cutting-edge theories and interventions for understanding and working with trauma survivors. From reading other comments it is clear that you are making a positive impact that goes far beyond helping therapists improve their abilities. Increased awareness of trauma and how it shows up benefits all occupations and people.
As a social worker in-between jobs I appreciate the boost that this training provided me. Reminders of what I know (from attending trainings with some of your trainers) keeps me positive, and gaining deeper insights keeps me fired up and fueled to get my private practice/supervision back on-line.
I appreciate Ruth’s encouragement at the end, and this question of how will I use what I have learned helps to deepen and lock in the training. I feel a better sense of awareness around potential counter-transference-what it looks like, what it means and how to navigate it better.
Thanks to everyone involved for this tremendous gift of knowledge!!
I’m commenting as someone who has been attending a therapist with somatic and sexual abuse expertise for several years. I just want to thank everyone training in this area, learning the absolute delicacy of awareness, that is essential to bring we who are traumatized back to safety.
I was in an endless circle of ‘new age’ gurus telling me my problem was ‘holding on to the past’. I was repeatedly shamed being told I needed to ‘let go’.. and of therapists, who just didn’t get it.
Fortunately I finally found a trauma-specialized therapist. She has saved my life and my sanity. Without her super sensitive approach, seeing the danger I was living in, internally and externally, and leading me so kindly, carefully and respectfully through it, I would not be here today. I’m so grateful this knowledge and understanding is being spread to help more people.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience! You have helped me & others!
My #1 take-away from this module is tracking of three ventral vagal states and role play practice ideas to bring these automatic responses to explicit awareness. Easier said than done, but I really would like to learn more. Thank you.
Specifically more conscious when working with a 13 y.o. Sexually abused girl to her please and appease or collapse submit responses.thank you for sharing examples of gentle and strong interventions- i shall use your examples!
Erasure…need to be bi-cultural.This nuanced understanding offers more healing options than the traditional Flight/Fight/Freeze.THANKS…N-j0y…nAz
I am not a therapist but a Psychosynthesis Coach and also a Grief support worker at a hospice. These sessions really help me to understand some of the subtle nervous system states and responses that can be misread and mislabelled. This is useful to be more mindful of my own inner workings as well as in attunement with the client, to notice different responses when these signs show up. Louise, London UK
I am greatly appreciative of the theory, work, and dedication you are committed to. The physiological response to trauma and developing effective interventions is the highlight of my professional endeavors. Everything you discussed resonates with me. I was a licensed massage therapist for 28 years (actually I still am), the comments about the therapist’s self care was instilled by my body therapy teachers (i.e., balanced, grounded, present, holding the space). Healing intentionality was the focus of my dissertation. Since a child, I knew how the nervous system kicked in during abusive situations. I believe that “good” psychotherapy has to involve the body. I think the nervous system is the key 🙂
Mahalo nui loa,
Cindy Schrader, PhD
I was very interested in the attach/cry defence and it’s misinterpretations, as well as the descriptions and nuances of the various responses of the nervous system. I am grateful for the experience shared by your experts about how they move their clients through the journey of retraining their nervous system and coping mechanisms to more healthy and effective responses or decisions. Thank you for sharing.
Grateful thanks for a great and informative session. I was particularly interested in how clients shut down in response to a traumatic situation. I now understand how one of my clients shut down as a child and became depressed after a family trauma in which she felt emotionally abandoned.. She used to feel tremendous pressure on the top of her head when studying, which affected her ability. She was unable to utilise her full capacity which left her angry and more depressed. Her teenage years were very unhappy and although she did fairly well in her exams, she did not feel good enough, worthless and felt no sense of purpose. Her father died in her early 20s and she felt relief, but guilty for not being able to grieve for the father she desperately wanted.
Your session helped me to understand more on the above. Fortunately she had the courage and determination to work on herself in an effective way towards her autonomy. Thank you.
Pauline, UK
Here in the uk with SA /DA the Perp is rarely challenged and the victims using please and appease is not recognised by many support agencies leading to Re-traumatising and victim blaming with disastrous results even suicide .,
I have lived experience and theses causes are so insightful and valuable in my quest to support more victims. When you have close live experience this just makes so much sense and relieves the shame and self blame .
I started buying what courses I could afford as the only option for self help and to offer peer support
I really enjoyed this session as a school leader it guides me in helping students and parents to connect with their nervous system so they can understand when they are ready to make decisions and move on away from the please and appease situations.
Thank you so much for this session. It has opened the door of my mind to many of my clients who have exhibited many of these defence mechanisms. It was great to examine them in more depth. it was also good for me to listen to the way a therapist can fall into the traps set by clients and has given me a greater self awareness around these issues
I love learning about new approaches to helping clients who have suffered trauma. It is never too late to add new tools to the toolbox. I really appreciate learning about sharing my nervous system reaction to the client’s experience and how to say it .
My goal is to be part of the solution, not to inadvertently reinforce long standing coping strategies that prevent personal growth.
Heather McKechnie
Social Worker
Newmarket, Ontario
Thank you. Much appreciate the kind offer to being able to attend. A better world for one may have the buterfly effect.
with sincere gratitte to all those involved.
Syma
I love how Deb Dana explained that she helps her clients learn to safely use defensive behaviors other than collapse/submit by practicing back and forth with them how it feels to say “No” from each of the three nervous system states (dorsal vagal, sympathetic, and ventral vagal), and that share with one another the response their own nervous system has in reaction. And then that she said she models for them different ways of saying “No” from a ventral vagal space, since many may not have a sense of that at all. Wow, this is so inspiring! Thank you for this incredibly illuminating content.
The information about the Please/Appease behavior was very helpful. I have been working with a client off and on for over a year who uses this survival technique. Even though she has gotten better, she still reverts to it under acute stress. This has given me some good ideas help her finally be free to be comfortable being herself after 74 years!
I’m fascinated by Deb Dana’s notion of noticing our nervous system state when working with patients, as a pick up point, a reality check….a way of better understanding their experience. I also love the “boundary muscle”- I’ve used it, I just never noticed it in that way!
Also loved the physical somatic body posture response to collapse as an actual
Physical exercise to straighten and push away. How empowering that must feel. And summaries between are so helpful in processing.
Amazing work, thankyou – wonderful program!
The most important for me was the polivagal approach, and the notion of co-regulation. The way of working and checking in both with yourself and sharing with the client, was extreamly important for me.
Thanks. In general I find the quality of this series very high and important. Looking forward to the segment on Shame, since this is one on the most important issues which spills over to supervision as well. I refer to it as the shame trap in supervision.
Again, thanks, and will be there for session #4
Deb Dana’s suggestion of saying “no” from the 3 states ¬icing responses & then doing the same with “yes”——I look forward to using.
I appreciate more and more how trauma and trauma responses can be diagnosed and treated as other (often stigmatizing) mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder etc…. It is so important to understand the role of trauma and to develop skills in working with these clients.
Boundary muscles
Awareness of significance of collapse and depression will help me to ask better questions.
I feel much more prepared to deal with my own trauma responses and triggers having this awareness.
I’m seeing this as a traumatized person, not a practitioner. It’s hard to translate. I can identify and take notes but it would help if more discussion was given to stages of recovery so that not jus the initial entries but the path out is described. Thank you for making this available. It is helpful in many ways.
I am not a therapist. I am a social worker. I work with people who are formerly incarcerated and suffer from post incarceration syndrome. I also suffered from abuse during incarceration. These lessons help me to handle my own issues when my clients come to me with issues of learned helplessness and PTSD.
This has been so helpful, thank you!! I am a counselling student about to go into my placement. I have been feeling very daunted about what I will be able to do with clients in helping them to move themselves forward, as I feel I have book knowledge that won’t help me in the room! Now I feel I am getting an understanding of how my self as the therapist really DOES matter. AND I feel like with practice I have a clear direction for working with all types of clients, and feel less afraid of re-traumatising vulnerable clients. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THIS AVAILABLE!!!
This was really well put together. Speakers and content were great, thank you! Higher caliber than the norm. Also loved learning about race/disadvantaged groups using Please/Appease, I’ll be incorporating this in my organizational trainings.
Thanks for these sessions. I have found them really helpful in understanding my own NS responses and learning to become more compassionate with myself. This is such important work to share this knowledge.
I have a client who can’t say no to her parents although she is married and has 2 children, so now I’m seeing her as having the please/appease response from her earlier years of sexual abuse. I’ll try to use some polyvagal strategies to work on getting her more comfortable saying no and keeping healthy boundaries.
Looking back to what I have done to work with trauma to my clients, today session has sharpening and enriching how to go deeper and some tips that helpful to my work where I might stuck or missed. Thank you.
As a pastor working with a congregation that was traumatized, this is helpful information in ministering to leaders most dramatically impacted by their individual and group experience. I also utilize this information in my volunteer work as a Guardian ad litem in juvenile court cases in which children are most often traumatized by various forms of abuse.
Hello Ruth,
I was able to watch the broadcast now, and I was really inspired. I am learning something new which is great and very heplful.
In my work with clients who are recovering from trauma, after showing empathy and non-judgmental understanding (based on Carl Rogers’ person centered approach), I validate the clients’ emotions including their pain, but I also balance that with emphasizing their strengths and resilience so that they realize they can support themselves. Sometimes I also ask them questions that would help them discover the stronger part of themselves (to reparent themselves in a healthy way).
Many thanks for your amazing work. I look forward to watchin the other videos and reading the material soon.
Extraordinary presentations & so well organized!
Thank you ! Importens of destinguis between depression and dorsal disapearing !
Very nice session. It was really explained very well. The case studies discussed made it more interesting. The concepts o defences : flee – fight – freeze and collapse were discussed in detail that gave carity to the subject. Overall a very enlighting and helpful webinar
Thank you so much for this session. I have been working with a young woman who I believe is having this attach/cry response and haven’t known quite how to respond to this. Thank you so much for helping me learn more about all 3 of these responses and how to address them.
I want to thank you for offering these free sessions. They have been God sent.
I’ve been in therapy for 5.5 years now. LOVE my therapist! He has worked miracles with me.
I can relate to all you have shared in all three of these lectures.
I’m a victim of sexual abuse including sodomy from the time we think I was about two or three from an aunt, uncle, and their older kids (my cousins) my oldest brother (got help) then from my first husband I was married to for 18 years. Also a physically abusive father, whom I adore (who got help and changed) and an emotionally abusive second husband who became a better man after I cared for him for 23 months before losing him to cancer July 4, 2015. I guess I felt safe and my subconscious felt the need to purge. I went into a deep depression (one of the four times in my life) and started to see a friend who is a therapist. His wife and I are friends and his marriage is solid. I needed a male therapist with his kind nature.
I have C-PTSD with dissociation and altered states.
Listening to you all has helped validate my choice to invest in seeking treatment, and that I found the right therapist for me.
It is so good to hear the “therapist” view of what he has been trying to help me learn, understand and practice. I’ve shared your handouts with him and he agrees of course with you. He is doing it right and I truly feel safe for the first time in my life.
I feel the timing of these lectures has been well timed. I have more work to do but also have a credible, validated path with a therapist who brought me out of a black hole using your proven pathway.(maybe he has participated in your program).
I am now 63 starting a second career and will need to work until I’m 80. I just got a job Saturday after three “failure to launch” jobs since 2015; think I’m finding who I am and feeling some peace. A peace I have never known before.
I also have eight siblings (I am #4) who were abused and have issues/depression/trichotillomania/etc. Being stronger, I can now help them find the treatment and support they need. Thank you all for sharing and for the miracles you help deliver daily!!
Viki in Dallas
Many congrats for a new job 🙂 How wonderful that you have a therapist you feel so, very safe with. And kudos to your persistence and commitment for your own well-being and healing. Thank you, so very much for your honest sharing. I am inspired by your example.
Yes, an inspiring example, very courageously shared. So wonderful have found the therapist you feel safe with and the process is working for you.
Thank you for all you shared Viki! I am 6 years behind you in age & just starting over to! This gives me hope. God bless you❤️
I was very interested to hear the misinterpretations of the attach/cry defence and its triggering of a few negetive responses in the therapist and its confusion with borderline personality. a new client of mine immediately sprang to mind and i will be keeping this in mind as i work with her.
Thank you, I agree is a wonderful webinar! I was aware about my physical feelings and intuitions with clients but now, I confirm is a powerful diagnosis tool! As well as I understand more about trauma and think there are many clients that have been diagnosed witch BPD but is more related to trauma
Not a therapist, but I am involved in pastoral care in my church. I began watching these to see how I can steer around the occasional landmine when someone is more seriously wounded than I am equipped to handle, and to know when to refer to a therapist. I am also glad to see the teaching challenging the usual flavor-of-the-month diagnoses of bipolar and BPD. On a personal level this session in particular has been very enlightening as I see conflicting survival strategies in my marriage too. Sent a link for these lessons to our marriage counselor. Hopefully it will help us make progress where there’s been a deadlock.
This series is proving very helpful. In my role as a taiji teacher, I have students come to me who are actually looking for ways to help themselves out of very difficult personal and situational problems. They join a taiji class for various reasons, some are trying to become more relaxed, some stronger, some are looking for a “magic eastern way” to health and wellbeing. And I have found that most of my students have problems that would benefit from counselling. I am not a trained counselor, so I can only provide a very limited amount of help; I can’t do much. However, I have personally been benefitting from counseling for a number of years now, and I can highly recommend it. It’s a hard sell to most people who are living with long-term problems, though. I need to know how I might help them accept the idea of going to a counselor. Many insist they don’t need help. Many have tried and rejected counseling because of “bad counselors.” In learning about the types of trauma and the approaches needed to communicate with those who have suffered trauma, I am beginning to understand better how to present counseling as a non-threatening option and to find ways to talk with my students about the possibilities. I wish I could afford your full courses– heck, I wish I could get a degree!– but I can’t. I am on SS myself, but I don’t charge for taiji lessons because the people who need the benefits of taiji and qigong (and there are many health benefits as well as a lot of mental benefits in getting back in touch with the body and movement! Taiji has been a literal lifesaver for me!), even the young ones, can not afford to pay for lessons. But your free classes have given me some understanding and some options to try when I talk with students about seeking /accepting counseing. Thank you.
So exciting to encounter Taiji-People on this comment-board! I have been loving the relevance to Taiji philosophy in these talks.
The somatic and polyvagal perspectives are absolutely relevant to Taiji practice and it has me so jazzed to expand both my own learning, as well as teaching, with an awareness of how trauma is relevant to what kind of skills need to be developed!
Leslie,
What a kind thing to offer Taiji to those who most need it and cannot afford it. Thank you for your service to a kinder, gentler world.
I’m not a therapist but was interested in these sessions because of my own personal experience. The ways these highly skilled therapists are helping people to recover and thrive by making their nervous systems comfortable and then strengthening the client’s “ability to be there for themself” is very helpful to me in my job as a tutor of children and teens with and without learning differences and as a sponsor in a 12-step program.
As a trauma survivor, warrior and mental health wellness educator, I thoroughly enjoy and learn from everything NICABM shares.
This series has been a “reaching the peak of another mountain” and encouragement. I instinctively knew there were more types of response models beside Flight, Fight, Freeze. This was the second time I’ve heard “possum” mentioned to describe a response seen. Forwarded the link so others can continue growing their own learning and to assist their clients. My booklist continues to grow!
As always, huge thanks to NICABM for a very important series. I love what Ruth said at the end about our interconnectedness and how helping one person find freedom from trauma can ripple out and change the world. I feel the power of that! Thank you.
In my practice as a trauma-based therapeutic movement and brain training provider, I teach my clients motions which can address all three of these defenses. I call the collection Mindful Motion. These three defenses are so prevalent I recently launched a podcast and YouTube series called Move Into Resilience, which is an educational and experiential show designed to provide people with motions they can use to resolve the trauma response, develop resilience, and learn some of the science behind them.
It is my passion to help others (therapists included) learn ways they can help themselves feel ok. We are wired to mirror each other, so if we can feel well, others will too!
Hi Pamela- brilliant! I will be sure to check that out- thank you!
I just finished participating ifor 12 days in The Embodiment Conference. Did you see itt?
Lots about polyvagal; movement. Most of Ruth’s key presenters spoke at this conference.
I’m loving these videos and using the ideas with my clients. I keep hoping to learn how to help a client whose somatic urge during and after the trauma was to kill herself (safe plan and supports inplace). She has been in dorsal vagal for months. Any one aware of some resources that can help with her somatic urge?
Dorsal Disappearance – help me be more careful with patients who are difficult to treat and have been labeled treatment resistant and may have been made worse from previous treatment. Also help me to give them sympathetic ns exercises- breathing, when and if they show any resistance, reward that with positive comment. ID my own NS response so not to react and cause more problems.
Please + Appease- doing not to activate other persons fight, inform pts that it is ok to say something think may upset therapist/me because I can take it. I am here to help you, you are not here to help me. Ask if you think they are trying to please me. Be aware of how my own NS is reacting and ego about being good or pleasing therapist. Ask client to think back and see if they can remember when they first recall trying to please someone. Ask they what it was like then and now for them, when they do this. Thank you I learned some new things and recognize if I learn more I can be better therapist.
About a third of my clients have been diagnosed at some time(s) with borderline, bipolar, or other conditions with the prefix “chronic.” When they and their partner(s) and family look up the condition online, their life and behavior is further defined by a set of symptoms. I see clues here that will help us untangle the rigid acceptance that maintains maladaptive beliefs and behavior.
I cherish the idea of micromoments to move us all along.
I have a new client starting today who is playing on my mind. I was feeling a little out of my depth, He is a middle aged man who hasn’t looked in the mirror for 2.5 years, no social engagement for 3. I wasn’t briefed much more about him, but thankfully I am attending this brilliant seminar! Todays session offered invaluable insights tips and tools around the collapse / submit response, how it may present as untreatable depression and how to work with role playing the different NS responses to trauma, which I sense will come in very handy with this client. Thank you.
Love that, Dolores, MacNeil. They can be really huge, though micro, right?
Aligning the body.
That seems like a very helpful, supportive and nourishing practice for client and care facilitator! “Know” this already, practice is easy to forget.
Thank you, really,
Jembe