Understand your trauma responses

When you work with an experienced psychotherapist, they will help you understand that certain behavior, emotions or bodily sensations can be signs of a trauma response. Often we identify trauma responses as fight, flight, freeze and submit responses -
 

• Fight – You once could not protect yourself.
• Flight – You were once trapped.
• Freeze – You once could not move or cry for help without the risk of abandonment.
• Submit – You once could not say no or set boundaries and still be accepted.

 
When we learn to identify the trauma responses, this can also help us to understand where these originated. This can then take us once step closer to healing from trauma, because we can identify how the circumstances have changed since we experienced that trauma. For example –
 

• Back then, you could not protect yourself because you were young and small. Now, you are an adult with independence.
• Back then, you were once trapped in a household with an abusive parent or sibling, but now you are free.
• Back then, you could not cry for help or move without the risk of abandonment by your caregivers, but now you are in a healthy relationship where you can express your emotional needs.
• Back then, you were not permitted to set boundaries, but now you have respectful relationships.

 
To heal from trauma involves helping your nervous system to sense that the trauma is in the past, and you are able to feel the present safety. You can distinguish past from present.
 
If you would like to explore this further, get in touch.

Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC
Explore Transform LLC
Counseling and Psychotherapy in Bergen County, New Jersey
www.exploretransform.com
+1 (201) 779-6917
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