One of the ways we have to work with ourselves is to explore sensations in the body without getting distracted by them.  This article by S.N. Goenka one of the great vipassana meditation teachers delves into this subject.  Reprinted from the  fall  2002 issue of Tricycle Magazine it has a timeless wisdom.

The Buddha was the foremost scientist of mind and matter (nama and rupa). What makes him a peerless scientist is his discovery that tanha, or craving, and by extension, aversion—arises from vedana, or sensation on the body.

Before the time of the Buddha, little if any importance was given to  bodily sensation. In fact, it was the centrality of bodily sensation  that was the Buddha’s great discovery in his quest to determine the root  cause of suffering and the means to its cessation. Before the Buddha,  India’s spiritual masters emphasized teachings that encouraged people to  turn away from sensory objects and ignore the sensations that contact  with them engenders.

But the Buddha, a real scientist, examined sensation more closely. He  discovered that when we come into contact with a sense-object through  one of the six sense doors (ears, eyes, nose, tongue, body, mind), we  cling to the sensation it creates, giving rise to tanha (wanting it to  stay and to increase) and aversion (wanting it to cease). The mind then  reacts with thoughts of either “I want” or “I do not want.” Buddha  discovered that everything that arises in the mind arises with the  sensations on the body and that these sensations are the material we  have to work with.

The first step, then, is to train the mind to become so sharp and  sensitive that it will learn to detect even the subtlest sensations.  That job is done by anapana—the practice of awareness of the  breath—on the small area under the nostrils, above the upper lip. If we  concentrate on this area, the mind becomes sharper and sharper, subtler  and subtler. This is the way we begin to become aware of every sort of  sensation on the body.

Next, we feel the sensations but don’t react to them. We can learn to  maintain this equanimity towards sensations by understanding their  transitory nature.

Whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, gross or subtle, every  sensation shares the same characteristic: it arises and passes away,  arises and passes away. It is this arising and passing that we have to  experience through practice, not just accept as truth because Buddha  said so, not just accept because intellectually it seems logical enough  to us. We must experience sensation’s nature, understand its flux, and  learn not to react to it.

As we reach deeper states of awareness, we will be able to detect  subtler and subtler sensations, or vibrations of greater rapidity,  arising and passing with greater speed. In these deep states, our mind  will become so calm, so tranquil, so pure, that we will immediately  recognize any impurity accompanying the agitated state and make the  choice to refrain from reacting adversely. It becomes clear to us that  we can’t harm anybody without first defiling ourselves with emotions  like hate or anger or lust. If we do this, we will come to an  experiential understanding of the deep truth of anicca, or impermanence.  As we observe sensations without reacting to them, the impurities in  our minds lose their strength and cannot overpower us.

The Buddha was not merely giving sermons; he was offering a technique  to help people reach a state in which they could feel the harm they do  to themselves. Once we see this, sila, or ethics, follows naturally. Just as we pull our hand from a flame, we step back from harming ourselves and others.

It is a wonderful discovery that by observing physical sensations on  the body, we can eradicate the roots of the defilements of mind. As we  practice more, negative emotions will become far more conspicuous to us  much earlier; as soon as they arise, we will become aware of sensations  and have the opportunity to make ethical choices. But first we need to  begin with what is present to us deeply in our minds at the level of  sensation. Otherwise, we will keep ourselves and others miserable for a  very long time.

S. N. Goenka first began teaching ten-day vipassana  meditation courses in India in 1969. His courses in vipassana  instruction are now being given to prison inmates, government officials,  corporations, schoolchildren, and the homeless.

Here’s an overview of the site and what kinds of information on here

Benefits of Meditation, a Few Cautions The benefits of meditation are there for you to enjoy and will enhance your healing enormously. When there’s so much internal noise going on it can be difficult to think about going inside.

How To Meditate If you have a trauma and PTSD history and/or a dissociative disorder and want to know how to meditate and learn meditation tips this site is for you.

Stages of Healing Trauma There are classic stages of healing trauma and PTSD. Meditation helps every step of the way.

Concentration Meditation Concentration meditation will allow you to be able to focus your mind and direct your attention away from the turmoil that trauma and PTSD bring. Instead, learn to keep your mind steady and focused.

Loving Kindness Meditation Loving kindness meditation is a beautiful antidote to the negative messages trauma survivors live with.

Mindfulness Meditation Mindfulness meditation helps you notice without getting lost in it or overwhelmed by it

Mindfulness Practice Suggestions Mindfulness practice suggestions

Treatment for PTSD There are a variety of treatment for PTSD and chronic PTSD including somatic therapies

PTSD Symptoms PTSD symptoms, panic attacks, anxiety attacks, physical impulses of fight or flight, dissociative disorders are all part of the legacy of post traumatic stress disorder.

Safe Place I often have the privilege of meeting with people who fear there is no safe place inside themselves. Meditation can provide that safe place, with practice, motivation, and skillfulness.

Anxiety Anxiety Attacks and Panic Attacks

Related links Related links for those with PTSD symtpoms, anxiety, depression, and dissociative disorders

Deirdre Fay Deirdre Fay has meditated since the late 70’s. Her own trauma history emerged from a deep slumber. Description of the role meditation played.

Contact Deirdre Fay Contact Deirdre Fay with questions, comments, thoughts, inspirations about your journey.

Meditation Meditation can be defined as a vast multi-prismed path to being present. There’s room for all of us!

Becoming Safely Embodied Ezine Becoming Safely Embodied Ezine is a monthly newsletter committed to inspiration and support for those with ptsd.

Becoming Safely Embodied Ezine Signup Sign up form for Becoming Safely Embodied Ezine

Compassion Compassion meditation is the foundation for healing PTSD and dissociation

Pierre Janet, a French psyciatrist (1859-1947) is credited with first noticing the symptoms
we now call post traumatic stress disorder. He took seriously the symptoms of hysteria,
which called dissociative disorders in the diagnositic manuals.

Janet studied the underlying mechanisms of these symptoms – looking beyond the label,
noticing how the body was involved. Unfortunately, his work was years ahead of his time
and it has only been recently that his work is getting the appreciation that it deserves.

For more information on Janet, see the work of Onno van der Hart, Kathy Steele, and Ellert
Nijenhuis as well as Pat Ogden’s book on Trauma and the Body.

In 1915,the physician Charles Myers wrote an article in the Bristh Medical Journal Lancet
called “A Contribution to the Study of Shell Shock.” In it he describes what happened to
three wounded soliders. Noting a similiarity between the three men Myers begins studying
what today would be called brain injury and it’s psychological correlates.

In 1940 Myers draws attention to the alteration of these traumatized war veterans between
how they presented themselves, seemingly to be normal, and these other extreme states. He
coined the phrases, “apparently normal personality” and “emotional personality” the parts
that seem to store the emotional consequence of trauma.

Move on to Dissociative Continuum

Return to Treatment for PTSD

Treatment for PTSD

In the last twenty years or so the treatment for PTSD has advanced from it’s early years, especially in regards to chronic PTSD. Although PTSD and it’s treatment has been recognized by physicians throughout the years, especially those who work with war veterans. One of the most prominent in the field of treating trauma was Charles Myers who in 1915 brought attention to the term “shell shock” in a journal article he wrote. Pierre Janet (1859-1947) has been instrumental in how the field thinks about dissociation.

We’ve learned a great deal about memory, the nervous system, and how traumatic material gets sequestered out of consciousness. Knowing this, skilled trauma therapists have learned how the treatment of PTSD can help people reduce their PTSD symptoms and heal the panic attacks, anxiety attacks, nightmares, and the physical impulses of fight or flight.

Many trauma survivors report having inner world that is at odds with how they present to the world.

Most people are aware of this difference and will acknowledge that people can’t relate to their extreme feelings of neediness, vulnerability, terror, horror, shock, betrayal or shame. They carefully protect what they express to the world because they haven’t had a safe experience of bringing that forth.  Others can’t hide, can’t keep these overwhelming feelings at bay. They often feel cast out by their families and society at large.

Whether or not you are able to keep posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms at bay you’re likely aware of the symptoms that range from panic attacks, anxiety attacks (becoming over time anxiety disorders), mood disorders, acute stress disorder, and dissociative disorders.

This section on the treatment of PTSD will look at the three main treatment approaches for chronic PTSD: somatic therapies, CBT, and the Internal Family Systems model which addresses the psychological self.

What does that mean if you’re one of those working with your trauma history?

You’re probably no stranger at being able to show a put-together side of yourself to the world, all while knowing there’s a lot more going on inside. In a simple way that’s what the dissociation models describe.

There are treatments for PTSD that are useful to look at. The various treatments below work with the range of PTSD, chronic PTSD and the dissociative disorders.

The somatic therapies approach to the treatment of PTSD looks more at the biological underpinnings of ptsd, the CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) looks at how to shape the mind, especially between therapy sessions, and the Internal Family Systems model approaches treatment with the intent to integrate parts of self. There’s no “right way.” Most people find that having an understanding of both actually helps the most.

Let’s look at the various approaches to the treatment for PTSD somatic therapies , working with internal parts, and trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy.

Tears of Healing Rain

c 1998 Mark Simos/Devachan Music (BMI) All rights reserved.

Chorus:

I will lay this burden down

That I have carried for so long

My own hand placed this mark upon my brow

Don’t need to wear it now

I will water this thirsty heart

With tears of healing rain

I’ll lean to lay this burden down

And never shoulder it again

Never again

I walk a tightrope

Stretched between my hope and darkest fear

And though I look to find

Too often I’ve been blind

When love drew near

I try to hold life lightly

Yet I step with a heavy tread

On this road I thought I’d chosen

Down which I was led

(Chorus)

I seek a wisdom

Some day I’ll learn from the trees that grace this land

From the wind that sighs

From the scattered leaves that fly I’ll understand

How they give themselves so gently

To the breeze that guides them on

To the hollows where they crumble

Back to earth and are gone

(Chorus)

I dream of doorways

Awake as new light plays

Across your sleeping face

As we lie here warm

Something distant yet enormous

Longs to be

Outside our window

Branches bow their heads with snow

From last night’s storm

Like they’re saying grace …

Over the years the trauma treatment theorists have identified stages of healing trauma. What’s written are the stages that people I’ve worked with have spoken of. See if they resonate with you. If you want to read about Phase Oriented Treatment for PTSD click here.

Functioning Fine (thank you very much!)

• Many people have experiences of themselves as coping fine before their trauma erupts into awareness
• It can feel quite different from what life is like after the time erupts
• These times before the PTSD gets activated we are coping with life’s stressors
• Many people might actually not know that their history would come forward and disrupt them so they are quite surprised and confused when it happens
• For some people it’s an abrupt change. One day things were good and then next day all hell broke loose
• Others find there’s this slow disruption in their daily functioning where they gradually “get worse” and nothing gets better (don’t despair though! with good support and help trauma and PTSD will be better!)

Fault Line Rupture

• This period when something happens can be hugely disorienting
• What you were able to cope with before can suddenly become overwhelming and terrifying
• ex: someone who was able to travel and roam the world is now filled with terror about leaving home
• ex: someone who would get massages every week now feels able to integrate being touched
• Many people will describe this period in terms of feeling dislocated. They might say I don’t know who I am anymore, or what I’m doing, and perhaps most disruptive is not knowing why I can’t cope the same way anymore
• This time on the journey is best spent learning how to dis-identify from your internal cacophony, separating out the various ways you’ve managed and protected your life from those parts that had to be exiled from your system in order to survive life

Putting Pieces Together Again – this time differently

• Once Humpty Dumpty feel off the wall life was different
• This is a turbulent time for people. What used to work doesn’t seem to work in the same way.
• It can be frustrating and you can easily feel out of control
• It’s a time where you will be learning how to use your own inner thoughts, feelings, and sensations to guide you
• During this time you will befriend parts of yourself that you never knew you had
• The problem is that this befriending process will feel alien and scary to the former ways of managing and protecting yourself
• In this new way of being you’ll probably feel unprotected and vulnerable
• Remember, you’re charting a new course! One in which you will more fully enjoy living in your own skin

Letting Go of Self Identity

• Moments in life when you can dis-identify from your parts so much you relax into your essence
• Personality issues decrease
• Life becomes even more enjoyable
• And even better, fear recedes

Treatments for PTSD: Somatic Therapy

Somatic therapy take the physiological understanding of animal defenses (like fight or flight) and explore how that helps us work with PTSD symptoms.

Defense Responses

This approach finds a similiarity between how animals respond and the trauma response that humans have.

For example, what’s the first thing an animal will do if under attack? They’ll fight back.

We find similiar instinct in our own bodies. When we feel attacked the might be immediate impulses to clench our hands into fists, our muscles might contract and prepare a fighting stance.

If we can’t fight, our next option will usually be to flee, to get out of the situation. You’ll notice the energy moving into your limbs, especially the legs, energy surging to prepare you to move – to flee.

If neither the fight or flight options are open, most will freeze. Stop. Won’t move. We’ll try to get as still and quiet as we can. The hope here is that the attacker won’t be able to locate us and will move on without harming us.

If all these options don’t work, the trauma response is to submit or comply. In animals we’ll see them falling down and “playing dead.” Animals will expose their vulnerable neck or belly. They’ll act like they’re already dead, cuz what animal want old meat?

In us humans this usually shows up as doing what we’re told. We’ll become nice boys or girls. We’ll be helpful, we’ll submit to the attack. We’ll comply.

The last innate defense is to cry for help. We’ll let a sound out — someone help me!

This innate cry shows up in animals as well. I know when my puppy had his first shots five years ago he cried — obviously he didn’t say help me!! but he was pulling away from the doctor, trying to get to me all while this sad, heart wrenching cry came out of him. My instinct was to grab for him, pull him to me and soothe him. That’s the attachment system at play.

Somatic therapy believe that you can effect change in all levels of the person by changing what is most concrete – the body and it’s mechanisms. These models approach healing trauma through what is called “bottom-up” processing. The idea here is that if you can calm the body then the thoughts and feelings will shift as well.

Somatic trauma therapies were developed by Pat Ogden, PhD (Sensorimotor Psychotherapy) and Peter Levine, PhD (Somatic Experiencing) both hold that processing the trauma at this level of the body will result in a much more relaxed and spacious healing process.

Sitting there, doubled over, hot with shame attacking, hands pressed against her face, writhing, Carol’s cries expressed her agony. She’s experiencing a really painful shame attack.

Here she is, in her 40’s, successful in her work and home life having worked on healing her trauma for years, yet once again, triggered. It’s hard for her to realize she’s triggered.

She’s told me many times that whatever it is that goes on sure does feel real. She describes her stomach being in knots, feeling like she wants to sink into the earth and die.

My work as a psychotherapist is really that of a mid-wife, helping people like Carol distinguish between what happens here in the present moment, dis-identify from it so that the memory can be explored as memory, separate from any re-enactment of what happened in the past.

As long as it stays consuming her body in the here and now she will writhe in shame, feeling like life is not worth living and wanting to do anything to shut off the pain.

I remind her, as I have many times when memories have overwhelmed her, that when the feeling is so intense and out of proportion to the experience that I can almost guarantee that she is re-experiencing a time capsule of memory, something put away in another time because it was too much to experience then.

That’s often how shame attacks happen – as a memory capsule exploding into the present moment.

Carol is now remembering what happened in that other time. That time capsule literally gives her the body sensations, the thoughts, words, images, and feelings of something that happened, somewhere, sometime.

This body experience is takes over and catapults her into another place. She describes the nerves in her body burning; her brain on fire.

Once she can re-orient to being in the office with me, she can begin to dis-identify from the intensity, acknowledging that what just happened might be about the past.

I ask her if she can bring her attention to the burning – to mindfully notice without being overwhelmed by it. She’s tentative, scared to be consumed again.

I remind her that she can learn how to enter these spaces, she can go as close as she needs to learn about it without being hi-jacked by it.

If it feels right, I tell her, can she take a few minutes to let it burn and see what happens next? It intensifies, she says, her body tremoring.

I see the contraction in her torso as her body quivers. Then I watch her body relax, her eyes open, and she looks at me. It’s easier, she reports, but still there. I nod.

Sometimes it takes some time. She takes a big breath, looks at me with tears as she reconnects with the body experience. This is what it was like, Carol stutters.

Her body is talking to her. She might not have the narrative for the experience, but her body is telling her something. We might not ever really “know” what happened.

Whatever happened is excruciating to deal with now – what on earth was it like to deal with when she has less resources, mentally, psychologically, physically?

Carol’s belly shakes again and she starts to cry. I ask her what’s happening? Just tears, she says, there’s no story to it.

Having no narrative memory is often the case. Sometimes the body is letting the body memory go through sensations like shaking, quivering, tremors.

Often people reach for stories, reasons for why this is happening. We feel the need for explanation. I understand that.

Sometimes the story, the meaning evolves out of the body experience, sometimes there is no story. The best explanation might be that you are experiencing something that you couldn’t experience when you were younger before you had the capacity to shape experience into meaning.

If we can get close to them, without shutting them off, or being overwhelmed by them, our bodies actually relax and feel more ease.

Which is where Carol ended up. God, she says as she shakes her head, this is so intense. It is.

And if it is this intense now I say to her, imagine what it must have been like when you were younger. If it’s this bad now, it must have been impossible to hold then. No wonder you set it aside for another day.

It’s actually a really smart strategy. We just have to remember that when we get triggered the next time – and your body speaks it’s own language again.

She nods silently as she moves back into her 46 year old body. Holy @#*%, Carol says, shaking her head. This is hard. Yes, I acknowledge. It is really hard.

It is hard to enter those spaces if you don’t have the capacity to witness. Without that you will be overwhelmed, catapulted back into what Bessel van der Kolk called, the nameless horror.

With the shame less crippling, I asked Carol, what happened? How did you get triggered? What were the facts? I have seen firsthand the body experience, but tell me, what were the facts?

It was really quite simple, Carol said.

She went to visit a friend who was busy. This friend had been a really good, close friend for years and had taken a new job a year ago and was working hard.

Carol said on the surface everything looked good, but she couldn’t connect with her friend. There was all this surface chatting but nothing deeper. It was really hard for Carol.

Before the visit was over there was some moments of real contact so Carol left feeling better, so she was doubly surprised to have the shame rolling up her body on the way home.

We now had the facts of the situation as it happened in the present. So, why had her body wracked with shame?

Now that Carol had some internal space from the sensation and could witness the sensation with some mindfulness, she took a breath and reconnected with the sensation. “It feels so intense, I could throw up,” she tells me with her eyes closed. “Is it okay to stay with it?” I ask her.

She nods. “It’s here.” She uses a hand to indicatew here it is in her chest.

I watch her shoulders relax and soften and known… without hearing form her, that something has shifted. She’s no longer caught in the internal quagmire. She’s able to notice it, without being it.

“What’s happening now?” I ask her. She reports from inside herself that hse has an image of herself holding this little swadddled child, wrapped in blankers.

Carol says it feels like it’s burning with shame. “How do you know that?” I ask her. She says, “I feel it in my body, but it feels like it’s her body…. it’s weird.” “Okay to stay with it?” I ask her again. She nods.

Carol murmurs to me, I’m just telling her it’ll be okay. I’m here with her. Somehow Carol is picking up that this child didn’t feel wanted, that no one wanted her. No one wanted to hold her, cradle her, care for her.

Carol’s face becomes beautific as she stays inside, then she tells me that she’s letting this child know that even if no one else wants her, Carol wants her. Carol wants her very much.

I watch this internal scene unfold. Carol’s body softens even more, tension leaving her shoulders.

My heart softens as I watch her. The transformation from the beginning of the session to this moment moves me deeply.

I know, and I will remind Carol, that that internal part of her needs to be tended to frequently. The shame Carol ends up feeling seems to be this tiny part trying to communicate with Carol, trying to get her attention, crying to love and care.

The historical accuracy of Carol’s experience may always be ambiguous. That’s not what I am most interested in.

What I want for Carol is for her not to be crippled by this toxic shame in her future. She’s had it for years.

As we traced it later in other sessions she’s been able to stitch together the moments of shame with times when she needed to be loved but was too ashamed of that need to do anything about it.

Perhaps now she’ll be able to take that experience and use it as a red flag.

Maybe now, when she starts feeling the earlier sensations she might be able to give herself some love and attention. It could come from taking a moment to be with the image of this little swaddled baby, offering it words, images, sounds, internal felt sense of being held and cared for.

What I know from other clients is that as Carol tends to her process, at some point, that swaddled baby will either not need as much attention, or won’t be there at all.

As one of my clients said about her internal experience – that part just grew up and didn’t need the same attention.

There is a Safe Place Inside

I often have the privilege of meeting with people who are wanting to learn how to meditate or learn how to deal with their internal struggles. Here’s a recap of one experience as we spoke of this lady’s fear that there would be no space place.

She told me there was no safe place. There never has been. She told me that when she listens to meditation tapes that guide her to find some safe place inside she only feels more alienated and separate.

Things like that emphasize how much she doesn’t belong, how different she is, and that even when others are well meaning, they really have no clue what it is like to live her life.

I remember that moment in the conversation clearly. There was a still point. I could choose to speak therapeutic platitudes or I could speak as one who has also been ravaged by trauma and who has had a committed spiritual path for over 30 years.

Yet, while making the choice to speak more authentically, or transparently as the Australian therapist Michael White would say, I still paused to cloak myself with courage.

The woman I was speaking to had called on the recommendation of her therapist to find out how learning to meditate can help her.

So far in the conversation we had had a pretty straight therapeutic dialogue about her process. Never having meditated, she described symptoms of acute anxiety and depression, barely contained by the pharmaceutical drugs that her psychiatrist had prescribed.

Never delving into details, she told me there is no safe place, there never has been, and she fears there might never be.

So I take the opening. Sharing that I understand from my own experience
what it is live with anxiety and depression, I tell her that meditation is designed to provide refuge, to build internal strength and mental equanimity.

I say that trauma does make you feel that there is no safe place inside.

And I suggest to her that there is a sacred space somewhere in her which is safe, that real safety is developed when we allow ourselves to get in touch with our heart, our soul, our source energy, our self, whatever word we want to use to describe that part that is larger than the suffering.

Centered in that space, we can finally hold the horror and agony that are the unfortunate consequences of trauma.

The air between us changes. There is a sigh – but I am unsure if it comes from her vocal cords or if it’s the relaxation of her system exhaling to make room for the ineffable.

There are no quick and easy solutions, I tell her. It takes practice, motivation, intention. But it can be done. You can find safety inside your own skin, your mind can be calmer. You can travel inside and find refuge.

The reassurance seems to remind her of something that she already knows. Something she seems to have, maybe not forgotten, but pushed away.

My words just re-orient her, back to where she wants to go.
Back to herself.

PTSD symptoms include panic attacks, anxiety attacks, physical impulses to fight or flight and dissociative disorders

Disruption of any kind is hard.

PTSD symptoms can be very disruptive, bringing on overwhelming terror, the tsunami of a panic attack, rage that comes up and takes over within a split second. At those times, it can feel like there’s nothing you can do about it and no where to go to get away from it.

These symptoms can force people to feel like withdrawing from life, from friends, from any possible arena that might instigate a panic attack, an anxiety attack, or the impulse to fight or fly out of the room.

One woman told me of how she would find herself running out of the room if a man talked with her. It embarrassed her since she felt she didn’t have any control over it. It seemed to happen to her. One minute she’d be in one place, the next minute she’d find herself running away. It was also a relief for her to know these are fight or flight impulses are classic PTSD symptoms.

Another man came to me for a consultation because he would find himself unable to go anywhere where there would be crowds. Even visits to a restaurant with his wife would inundate him with hypervigilent attention to sounds.

He described sitting with his wife but listening to conversations at tables on the other side of the room. Listening to multiple other conversations. Scanning the room with his senses. Waiting. Watching. Intently alert for the slightest sound. Not knowing if he would have to fight his way out of the room.

These kinds of PTSD symptoms are unfortunately common with PTSD. Newer research shows that higher somatic arousal often comes from not having attunement as a child. Attachment researchers write that when a parent helps regulate normal play and exploratory activity the child learns to regulate their own internal affective system.

Classic PTSD symptoms

Although most people think of PTSD symptoms as getting overwhelmed, we also know that trauma symptoms can also be about avoiding.

Avoidance symptoms

• Not wanting to deal with anything distressing about the event(s)
• Avoiding any people, places, events, situations, activities that might remind you of trauma
• Dismissing how you have been affected
• Feeling numb, detached, disinterested in people or events
• Internal experience of life not being worth it, that you’re not going to live long, or that your future is limited

On the other hand, when you have PTSD you might feel like you’re in danger, that life is scary. This comes when your nervous system is constantly on alert, making it almost impossible to relax, let go, or be at rest.

Heightened arousal symptoms

• Hypervigilance, feeling on guard, that your nervous system is scanning for danger
• Anxiety attacks and panic attacks
• Exaggerated startle response
• Prone to anger, reactivity, upsets

Intrusive symptoms

• Memories of a traumatic event
• Flashbacks or a feeling of reliving something horrible
• Bad dreams or nightmares that don’t necessarily make sense although they can be specific

Innate Defenses: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Submit/Comply, and Attachment Cry

Fight or Flight We’ve learned a lot from watching animals respond to danger. What’s the first thing an animal will do if under attack? They’ll fight back.

If they can’t fight, their next option will usually be to flee, to get out of the situation.
Their flight response gets activated and they will get away.

Freeze If neither their fight or flight options are open to them, most will freeze. Stop.
Won’t move. Try to get as still and quiet as they can. The hope here is that the attacker
won’t be able to locate them and will move on.

Submit or comply If all these options don’t work, most animals will fall down and “play dead.” They’ll expose their vulnerable neck or belly. They’ll act like they’re already dead, cuz what animal want old meat? As humans this describes when we become nice, or comply, go along with something. We don’t cause waves. We don’t make someone mad at us. It’s a very helpful survival technique.

Cry for help / Attachment There’s also this last innate defense: cry for help. We’ll let cry out — someone help me! I know when my puppy had his first shots five years ago he cried — obviously he didn’t say help me!! but he was pulling away from the doctor, trying to get to me all while this sad, heart wrenching cry came out of him. My instinct was to grab for him, pull him to me and soothe him. That’s the attachment system at play.

For information on reducing stress click here
This is an easy to comprehend site depicting real life experiences of stress as it occurs in day to day living. There are many pages of self help techniques. Develop time management and organizational skills while learning relaxation techniques along with stress reducing tips and much more.