What triggers the freeze response?
We tend to think of traumatic events, but according to Peter Levine, PhD, that’s not always the case. Even a perceived threat can be enough for a client to get stuck in a frozen state.
So how can we help clients who are stuck in the freeze response to move forward? Have a listen.
According to Peter, the energy that is “locked up” in a client’s frozen state is the exact energy we need to target to help them find a release.
You can hear more about how to skillfully navigate the freeze response in the Advanced Master Program on the Treatment of Trauma. Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Pat Ogden, PhD; Stephen Porges, PhD; and other top experts will get into exactly what to do (and what NOT to do) when a client freezes in your office.
What are your biggest takeaways from this video? How might you use this in your practice? Please leave a comment below and let us know.
If you found this helpful, here are a few more resources you might be interested in:
[Infographic] How to Differentiate Between the Freeze and Shutdown Trauma Responses
Working with the Freeze Response in the Treatment of Trauma with Stephen Porges, PhD
How to Help a Client Come Back from Freezing in a Session
Thank you for this information. I love Peter Levine and I apply many of his techniques in my own practice due to my training with the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute. I have worked with the freeze response using both Sensorimotor and EMDR. I have found that both approaches are effective for autonomic responses such as the freeze response.
ps. right now it is manifesting in a debilitating freeze response where it squeezes me so tight, I can’t breath or see. I am not a complainer so this is my first time to reach out. I can’t survive the pain. I can no longer work. Thank you.
I appreciate the information on training professionals to deal with this but I am desperate to find a practitioner who can help me work through the PTSD Fight/flight/freeze response. I have had complex trauma and complex symptoms and really need to know how to contact people who are trained in these methods. I have been in counseling for years, tried meds, etc. Is there a list of practitioners somewhere? I have tried Levine’s site, Bessel’s site, etc.
I have looked for so long for people who understand this horrible situation.
Thank you very much for any feedback!
I just tapped on meridians to release hypervigilance..freeze mode I have been in since kid.im 72..think I’m finally feeling better
Hello I appreciate all the time you put into this. I am a licensed mental health counselor in spokane wa. I have been working with trauma victims for 22 years. Presently I have a 24 year old client who is so stuck as you have spoken about here. He was so dominated by his father that he was told what to do everyday all day and didn’t even develop an identity. I can understand his greatness but if I tell him what I see he is a gentle humble great man and he only wants to be alone and fish in a not so safe boat. His PTSD has driven him way inside and he has a deep shame spiral with no goals for the future.
I am trying to watch the video but ironically when i push the arrow it seems to be stuck in freeze response. I invite therapy to unfreeze this video.
My late malignant mother’s emotional abuse was off the charts. My body hasn’t given any sign of responding in concert with my feelings in decades. I’ve even lost the ability to fall asleep EVER without taking a prescription antipsychotic. Naturally in my current state therapy modalities like EMDR and SE don’t do a thing, but I wish I had access to something like that. If I’ve been reading about this correctly I have connection survival style and I’m stuck in dorsal vagal state (that’s how it seems anyway). Is there any real possibility of recovering, is there anything that the therapy community knows how to do about this and who would I contact?
So sorry you were so badly mistreated. Hopefully one of the professionals here provides you with some helpful resources.
Hi Jeffrey—you could looking into having auricular acupuncture—NADA 5 needle protocol. Acupuncturists without Borders and other organizations such as community supported acupuncture groups offer this treatment for people exposed to traumatic circumstances. It can be very helpful in easing the nervous system. Low cost. Best to have repeated treatments over time. 🧘♂️ I’m a psych np and acupuncturist
I empathise with you! I have Complex PTSD.
I began a course of IOPT therapy which reveals our unconscious trauma. I have been doing this for five years now, and it has been life changing. I am now having EMDR in conjunction with my IOPT therapy.
I would research this, it is worth a try.
Therapists are available online in the UK
Would it be considered “frozen” when their appears to be no inner motivation /trigger to action? I have a 23 yr old, very intelligent male client who cares & wants to do things but becomes “distracted”by computer games, youtube videos, books & the action (showering, accomplishing a task) never comes. His self-talk, consequently is negative and demeaning. Client has a belief that he “should” be able to function & doesn’t ask for help.
Try acupuncture and even osteopathy too if he’s willing. It’s a combination of blocks in the body and things like what TCM calls dampness/phlegm that needs to be shifted. That’s what I’m currently doing along with SE
This sounds like ADHD. I myself have this and so does my son. It’s more than what people think it is. It’s a disconnect between what you know you should do and the executive functioning that tagged that information and allows you to act on it. I’m a cognitive coach and we do brain exercises to strengthen this. Try looking up the nectar group.
Or he might be on autism spectrum and also have ADD/ADHD.
what about if they are stuck in a freeze mode in terms of no emotion for months. He describes as not even numb but no affect.
Sounds like dissociation.
Agree
I treat the same / similar by using what I call ‘FOCUSED INTENT’ after putting the client into REM sleep using aromatherapy, massage or reflexology to release the ‘energy’.
Acupoint tapping, telling a little bit about the story, but focusing more on the physical sensations and emotions that are emerging during tapping is my favorite tool when the feelings or sensations are overwhelming for the client. Ronald Hindmarsh/Germany has developed a very helpful extra step in his systemic tapping approach: bow to the system and be deeply grateful, that it has controlled the frozen energy for such a long time when it was not safe to express it.
Interessant
I searched Ronald Hindmarsh, on YouTube, his postings are in German or ? language. Do you know of any English videos or books he has please?
Youtube has subtitles? Or ask him to make them?
Great strategy! how do we treat someone with Globus Sensation? a somatic lump in the throat due to an unsupportive environment and unable to speak up?
I would like to know that, too
I would like to know that, too
If it’s of interest, in Natropathy we use remedies like homeopathic Ignatia amara to help move the stuck grief and that globus hystericus sensation.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you Peter Levine & Ruth for sharing this special wisdom!
I love this. My biggest take aways are; the client’s narrative provides the window to their stuck energy, don’t get distracted by the story but instead notice signs of energy shifts in their body, focus the client’s attention on their body and teach them to notice images and memories that come up to locate the unresolved little t traumas that are causing the current issues for the client.
This is very helpful. I wok work with youth in drama groups and when we do physical movements for sustained periods of time it releases emotions they are not prepared to deal with, or they simply refuse to participate. Some students don’t come back! What I have to understand is that physical movement releases many emotions that most young people are not able to understand. I need to be aware of this in my work. Thank you
He is exceptional among SE Therapist
My jaw just drops when I see him in Action
It’s almost Magical
“Working with the energy that is locked in the frozen muscles”. Helping the person to notice the bodily responses when you as a therapist is working with the client. I have found Dr. Levine’s work to be transformative in conceptualizing the bodily impact of trauma on the individual, the freeze response, and to give practical methods to intervene, and help decrease the person’s suffering.
I was so glad to read that Alanis Morrisette really likes Peter Levine’s works. Mr Levine is one of my all time favorites and we use a quote of his for my work…Mandala Assessment Research Instrument…I’ve been delving into his cell memory and releasing trauma material. I love this too! In fact, I’m was hoping to get Alanis Morisettes blessing to use a verse from her song Thank U in a quote for a post. “the moment I let go of it, was the moment I got more than I could handle…and the moment I jumped off of it, was the moment I touched ground”…..I love that song and that verse came true for me recently. I credit Alanis for helping me get to this stage in my life. Her music keeps healing as the years go by!
I think about how still that might activate a patient, noticing. Would it be then to work at might be so feint/subtle or less catalyzed micro-movements?
Lo Taurus, LCSW
Denver
720-252-1909
This is a nice way to approach a client about the tension they hold in their body. Thank-you!
Over many years Peter Levine’s work has been transformative for me personally and for my practice. Great thanks to you, Peter!
Great description. Helpful.
So true. So many therapists move into the talk therapy before that important signaling from the nervous system is noticed and addressed.
So important to address that lower level brain before higher level cognition can work best
Agree whole heartedly that we need to drop in the body to engage and address the lower brain( Brain Stem) where life is lived first eg.
Breath , movement, connection ,touch etc with conscious awareness.Higher or Cognitive Brain is off Line.
Nan, I will like to know more about targeting the nervous system and if there are resources in the North Carolina area to help with rebuilding the nervous system.
Thanks
Thanks Peter …I love my job and if you hadn’t created SE I wouldn’t be helping clients do this type of intervention every day. What a gift.
All emotions are energy. They have to be released. Teaching our clients to notice their physical response to an event in the present teaches them to acknowledge the uncomfortable physical and emotional response and release the energy of the emotion in a safe way. Many years ago there was trauma conference in Chicago. It was designed to address levels of experience. There was a paper presented called the BASK Model. Behavior, Affect, Sensation, Knowledge, teaching our clients to pay attention to themselves in the moment, notice their physical response and loosen the part or parts of their body allows them to release the energy. This decreases their somatic complaints and symptoms. Thank you Dr. Levine for sharing the example. Lynn Skunta LPCC-S Cleveland, Ohio. I’ve been working in mental health since 1976-77. I still love the work!
Alexander Lowen was a patient of Wilhelm Reich, who went on to formulate his own version of bioenergetic analysis. He wrote several books on how useful it can be to access tensions in the body in therapy. There is a physical component to every emotion – blocked or not – and these can provide a more direct route in helping clients.
Thanks for the reminder of the body response to this world tragedy that now is bringing in clients to process. I literally understand the freeze response lately on a more sublle level. After I end my day, my body has been going into a immobilzed state and causing a disruption in life joy and health.
It is so good we know how important this nervous system is and how we can help this immobilized responses, the better. Thanks for the reminder of even the jaw. We will see a lot of locked joints in the months to come.
If I had a SE therapist in the area I would refer them in a heartbeat. I find the immobilization reminded me of catatonic clients, noted how important my freeze state could get worse. It is alreay affecting my joints and sleep. Instead of shutting down, breath control can get the system in line with calming down the day. The day used to energize me but lately is doing just the opposite. It does not matter how long ago this issue came up, I found it a good reminder for me to not allow the unnecessary freeze state which have learned how to monitor.
We cannot change the society today in the short term but small steps to help their nervous system is mandatory. Thanks for the reminder of small steps we can do so no one is overwhelmed.
Thank you, Dr. Levine! As I listened to the video I realized my jaw was holding tension and I followed his recommendation of how to release that, and it worked beautifully and immediately! Now I can feel the slight headache I’ve had since waking slowly easing away.
I’m not skeptical of a 60 year old story. Neither anger nor rage nor how a person might hold those emotions in their muscles and in their body would change in 60 years.
I am not ashamed to state that I am a living testimony concerning his statements of Immobility and holding tension in ones jaw. On many accounts, individuals outside of the medical field have made comments. Whenever the tension (energy) is contained within my jaw, ART eye movements serve me well.
Thank you for sharing Peter.
I love seeing clients get more clarity of the primary emotion that sits beneath the secondary observable emotion.
Peter, would you consider the client’s anger as secondary emotion for the shame of missing the promotion, or a primary emotion of rage (as Panksepp would explain as primary emotion) for the promotion being taken away from him?
Sleiman Abou-Hamdan
Clinical Psych
Actually it is the emotion called “Murderous Rage” that is being Repressed by – Shame Disgust ,Repulsion and almost Self – Loathing.
Just a misunderstanding that Emotions are not the same as Action/Behavior . Emotional patterns are set in early childhood when Cognitive Brain hasn’t yet evolved.
Peter seems to work at the Cellular level in the Body
This is the question I would like to ask and know the answer in more details. “would you consider the client’s anger as secondary emotion for the shame of missing the promotion, or a primary emotion of rage (as Panksepp would explain as primary emotion) for the promotion being taken away from him?” Thanks.
Dr. Levine, thank you for your powerful, insightful reminders that a therapist may misinterpret during the therapeutic process. Your reminder of ‘How’ the body keeps score came at the right time for me to apply to a current client case. Your insightful reminder brought me back to Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps The Score. Currently, am revisiting his book. Thank you!
CJClark, LMFT
Very interesting. I am learning some of Dr. Levine’s methods with Brain Spotting.
Actually I believe the comments are very much aligned with the concept of Integration in the current field of Interpersonal Neurobiology.
Agreed. If anything, current science in interpersonal neurobiology is finally catching up to Dr. Levine’s ground breaking work of the 1960s.
As a board member of the Wilhelm Reich Infant Trust I was delighted to hear Peter’s explanation of Reich’s theory. Thanks so much.
I always appreciated Peter Levine and his work with Trauma from way back. How our bodies hold tension, and many times in frozen states, that hamper us with pain and imbalance over the years. He works well in undoing the freeze and that is something we, who are not therapist, can also gently work with ourselves with awareness to help gently undo the freeze.
… A True ‘Freeze’ Response (for those of us that were born with ‘vaso-vagal syncope’ – but did not die a crib death…) is more like a temporary fainting effect! (You do need physical response of ‘lying down & elevating your feet above your head 20 min or so’ & you will be perfectly fine!) … And, Yes, it is many ‘physical actions’ (that I have developed over almost 80 yrs of living in this body) that help ‘Manage’ the fainting response …
Thank you for bringing back to my attention, the James-Lange “Theory of Emotions” …
Denise ‘Dee’ Boman
dboman13@gmail.com
Note:
For those w/conventional ‘Fight or Flight’ Vagus Nerve, perhaps a term like ‘Brain/Limbic Shut-Down’ might better apply since anger/fight feeling was ‘initial state’ not “Physiological Calm Retreat into Sleep State” of A Non-Myelinated Vagus Nerve…)
Agreed
Hi Peter such a power and yet simple way to unlock “locked up” energy. We often normalize the tension we feel anywhere in our body system as “how I am”, and yet when we sit with a kind and compassion clinician who helps us to notice how we react with our body to a situation that took place a long time ago and in the recounting of that event causes the same tension to be present NOW. This helps us to discharge that “locked up” energy, thank you Peter for reminding us to be kind, compassionate and listen with care.
Khadro
Your Little Sister in Canada
Very helpful in working with clients to integrate brain/body awareness.
How do I find a therapist near me who is trained to do this work?
Hi Rebecca look on the website SETI . They list practitioners trained in somatic experiencing, Peter Levine ‘s model. Somatic experiencing trauma institute.
Barbara Wade
Hi Rebecca
It doesn’t only have to be an SE (somatic experience/ing) therapist. Many therapists whose original methodology had roots in the pioneering work of Reich will incoporate somatic, or body process, work into their therapeutic model. This includes sensorimotor therapists, Gestalt therapists with a particular interest in trauma and body process; body therapists; biodynamic massage therapists and more besides. The key things are to find a therapist confident and comfortable in working with trauma, body AND relationship (eg transferential patterns) – as many of these body symptoms also have roots also in attachment patterns between child and parent/carer. Good luck!
Dry well put
Peter is delightful! I love all the books. So helpful in working with patients who are ill.
My husband died suddenly after a heart event. No warning. I gave cpr which did not work. Emt’s could not revive him. I was in shock, stoic except for all that had to be done. The first time I froze doing anything re the estate it was for two weeks. I was unable to make a judgment about the lawyer’s proposal. Then, like magic,I came out of it. I froze at shorter and shorter intervals over time. My husband of 53 years died 3/13/19. I just accepted the freezing without anxiety and it went away. I don’t freeze anymore but I wonder if there is something wrong that I don’t cry. It feels as though the pain and loss is too deep to cry. Other than that, I am doing very well.
I was using one of his very simple therapies of reclaiming my body. He means it when he says not to do these alone. I was simply tapping the back of my hand and saying ‘this is the back of my hand…this is my hand.’ And I panicked because I could not breathe. I had the ‘body memory’ of being held down and abused to the point I could not breathe. I did not expect that to happen. I am also afraid to cry because of my losses and I think if I start I will never stop, and who can live like that…but who will go through it with me to keep me safe? Trust is already the issue. I have had some success by postponing the ‘overwhelm’ til I am alone, but that just piles on the secrets, doesn’t it.
Charlene and Rosie, I am so very sorry for the sorrow-filled and frightening parts of life. From similar experiences as a young girl and adult woman (family trauma and the unexpected passing of my husband 2 years ago), I notice parts of me are able to be with the tears and numbing results for minutes at time, and then a part needs to keep moving, going. The late in life panic and anxiety from driving high overpasses has finally been seen as a fear, a belief, from childhood that I wouldn’t really make it. That “survivor part” of me (referring to Richard Schwartz’s IFS approach), felt safe enough to be heard 51 years after the event in my family.
I know I will make it. I may feel numb at times, but it passes and the tears flow as I am ready for them to be on my face.
Blessings and love to you both. ?
Peter uses a combination of body mindfulness and physiological movements to help free the person from the ‘stuckness’ of the freeze reaction. I have never gone wrong in a therapy session when I help a client to become aware of their body. A simple comment like “I’m noticing your head dropping down and your eyes avoiding contact with me.” Are you aware of that? Are you noticing any emotions coming up? Inevitably, we usually discuss what memory, belief or in-session interaction provoked a shame response.
We treated a woman who had a conversion reaction. Her right leg was paralyzed. It turned out she was at the wheel of the car when her husband got out to open the garage door. She had been very angry at him and had an impulse to floor the gas and run over him. But she didn’t because her leg would not respond.
Brilliant! I’ve experienced Somatic Experiencing – simple and profound. Just by ‘listening’ to the somatics that appear. Thumbs up!
I appreciate learning from Dr Levine.
Hi My Clt has the fear of injuring his back again after two past episodes; he is a farmer & his controlling father who is an invalid now refuses to sign over the farm to him even though my client is doing all the work & running the business…..he hasn’t addressed/realized the controlling behaviour of his father even though his father still calls him “boy” & and he is 41 yrs old …… thank you for the insights
I am not a therapist but an acupuncturist and nutritional therapist 17 years in practice.
“Boy” cannot depend on his father signing over a farm to him. Boy needs to train another boy and find another job on another farm or re- train and get another life where he has sone semblance of control. He may never get respect from his father no matter how much he has earned it.
It sounds to me like he needs to let his father go and save his own life.
fascinating, raises SO many questions
Thank you for giving Peter Levine’s observation space.