Understanding Fight, Flight, and Freeze: A Somatic Therapist’s Guide
At some point in your life, you have experienced a fight, flight, or freeze trauma response. Have you ever been in a heated argument and felt your heart race? What about being in front of a group of people and suddenly forgetting what you were going to say? Have you ever started to cross the street, only to see a car coming, and quickly dodge out of the way? Have you ever been in a crowded room and found yourself looking for all of the exits?
These are natural survival responses that can sometimes show up when we don’t want them to. Understanding how you experience the fight, flight, and freeze response is paramount to your progress in trauma healing therapy and your overall wellbeing.
What Is the Fight, Flight, Freeze Response?
The fight, flight, and freeze response is the body’s automatic survival system, triggered by real or perceived threats. Controlled by the autonomic nervous system, these fight, flight, and freeze trauma responses prepare the body to either confront danger (fight), escape it (flight), or shut down completely (freeze). While these trauma responses are essential for survival, they often become chronic in individuals with unresolved trauma, PTSD, or high stress. Understanding these nervous system responses is a critical first step in trauma healing, somatic therapy, and nervous system regulation.
What is the Fight Response?
The fight response is the body’s way of preparing to confront a perceived threat head-on. This trauma response often shows up as anger, irritation, or a strong urge to take control. Physiologically, the fight response may feel like adrenaline surging, clenched fists, or a racing heart. In trauma therapy, we explore how this nervous system state can be both protective and overwhelming and how to regulate when the fight response is no longer needed.
What Are Characteristics of The Fight Response?
Characteristics of the fight response include:
Energy is mobilized to fight off a threat
This could be verbal or physical
The heart races and pumps blood to the extremities
Anger may or may not be present
What is the Flight Response?
The flight response is rooted in the drive to escape or avoid danger. It often shows up as restlessness, anxiety, overworking, or the need to “stay busy.” Physically, you might notice tension in your legs, fast breathing, or scanning for exits. For many trauma survivors, the flight response becomes habitual, keeping them in a constant state of nervous system activation that somatic therapy can help unwind.
What Are Characteristics of The Flight Response?
Characteristics of the flight response include:
Energy is mobilized to escape the threat
Heart races to pump blood to the extremities
Orientation towards exits
Feeling antsy or trapped
What is the Freeze Response?
The freeze response occurs when fight or flight responses are not accessible, and the body moves into a shut-down state for survival. It can feel like numbness, disconnection, or a sense of paralysis, both emotionally and physically. While freeze is a valid trauma response, staying stuck here can lead to depression, isolation, or difficulty engaging with life. Somatic therapy works gently to build awareness and safely exit the freeze response over time.
What Are Characteristics of The Freeze Response?
Characteristics of the freeze response include:
This happens when fight and flight aren’t possible
Systems shut down and begin to immobilize the physiology
Looks like being still or “playing possum”
The Polyvagal Theory and Survival States
The Polyvagal theory has not come without its fair share of criticisms, but is a widely accepted way of exploring survival responses in the physiology. The Polyvagal Theory was developed by Stephen Porges. He discovered that the vagus nerve, which is a part of the autonomic nervous system, is most likely split into two parts: the dorsal vagal and the ventral vagal nerve. He posits that the autonomic nervous system is hierarchical. His colleague and contributor, Deb Dana, explain it like this:
The Polyvagal ladder details the three states of the autonomic nervous system: the ventral vagal, sympathetic, and dorsal vagal states.
Taken from https://www.emilykennett.com/the-polyvagal-ladder/
The Three States of the Autonomic Nervous System
The Ventral Vagal State: Safety
At the top, you have the ventral vagal state, which is a part of the parasympathetic nervous system. The ventral vagal state is in charge of rest, connection, and presence. It is the part of our system we are in when we experience safety.
The Sympathetic Nervous System: Threat
Moving down the ladder, we have the sympathetic nervous system, or where we experience fight and flight. We go into this part of our system when we have been alerted to a trauma threat (via the amygdala in the brain) and then decide to mobilize that energy into a trauma survival response.
The Dorsal Vagal State: Shut Down
At the bottom of this “ladder,” we have the other part of the parasympathetic nervous system, or the dorsal vagal state. Stephen Porges often calls this the “dumb vagus” because it is a very ancient part of the nervous system that goes into shut down (or freeze) during trauma when nothing else works.
How the Polyvagal Ladder Helps in Therapy
We use this lens in trauma therapy for two reasons: to normalize survival strategies and to understand the best course of action for self-care and trauma healing. The way that you regulate your nervous system is different when you're shut down compared to when you’re socially connected and relaxed.
How Does Trauma Keep Us Stuck in Fight, Flight, or Freeze?
Trauma or chronic stress can create chronic activation of the fight, flight, or freeze responses. This shows up in a myriad of ways, from the person who can’t stop working and slow down, to the other person who has panic attacks frequently. When we experience trauma or chronic stress, the brain becomes too hyperaware of the dangers that possibly could be, which sends the physiology into frequent survival responses. This creates a high allostatic load on the body, which contributes to being easily overwhelmed, feeling burnt out, difficulty maintaining relationships, and getting sick frequently.
Symptoms of Nervous System Dysregulation
A person who is stuck in a chronic activation of the fight, flight, or freeze responses might frequently experience any of the following symptoms of nervous system dysregulation:
Feeling numb
Anger outbursts
Feeling depressed
Easily crying
Unexplained tension in the body
Chronic fatigue
Headaches or migraines
Being worried about things and not being able to stop
Panic attacks
Shutting down/feeling disengaged from others
Maladaptive coping, such as substance use, increased screen time, or emotional eating
What Is the Fawn Response and Why Does It Matter?
The fawn response is a trauma survival strategy where a person appeases, people-pleases, or submits to avoid conflict and stay safe. It often develops from relational trauma and can lead to chronic self-abandonment.
We glorify the fight and flight response so much that I find that it discounts the real ways that many trauma survivors had to keep themselves safe. For many who have endured chronic stress or trauma in their interpersonal relationships, they have had to appease and submit as a way to ensure their survival. This is what many professionals are speaking of when they talk about the “fawn” response.
Fawning as a Survival Strategy in Relational Trauma
Most agree that the fawn response is more of an active freeze state. It comes after the fight/flight response, when the survivor realizes that there is no point in either of those tactics because it will increase the level of threat. In trauma therapy, it is important to acknowledge this as a legitimate survival strategy because there is a lot of shame that can come with it.
How Somatic Therapy Helps Heal Survival States
There Is Hope: Your Nervous System Can Heal
If you are experiencing any of the symptoms of fight, flight, or freeze responses, know that you are not alone. There are incredible trauma therapies, such as somatic therapy and EMDR, that greatly help you get out of these chronic patterns of stress in the nervous system and heal trauma.
What is Somatic Therapy?
Somatic therapy is a body-based approach to healing trauma that focuses on how stress and emotional pain are stored in the nervous system. Instead of focusing only on thoughts or behaviors, somatic therapy uses tools like grounding, breathwork, movement, and nervous system tracking to help clients reconnect with their bodies. This trauma healing approach supports nervous system regulation, increases interoceptive awareness, and helps resolve trauma by gently releasing stored survival responses like fight, flight, and freeze. It’s especially effective for clients who feel stuck in chronic stress or disconnected from their body due to trauma.
Moving Into Safety
When working with a trauma-informed therapist who is well-versed in survival physiology, you are able to find pathways out of fight, flight, and freeze, and into safety and trauma healing. Even if you have lived like this for so long that it is hard to conceive of any other way of living, I assure you that your nervous system is wired for trauma healing and nervous system regulation.
Happy healing!
Ready to Begin Your Trauma Healing Journey?
Are you ready to shift out of fight, flight, or freeze?
Our trauma-informed therapists in Kansas City are trained in Somatic Experiencing. They are currently taking on new clients and are happy to connect with individuals who are ready to start their journey to healing trauma.
Frequently Asked Questions About Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn
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The fight response is the body’s way of confronting perceived danger with aggression or control. It’s a survival response triggered by the sympathetic nervous system, often felt as irritability, muscle tension, or the urge to argue, push back, or dominate a situation.
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The flight response is the nervous system’s instinct to escape danger by fleeing. It often feels like anxiety, panic, or restlessness and may result in overworking, avoiding conflict, or physically removing oneself from stressors.
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The freeze response occurs when fight or flight isn’t possible, and the body goes into shutdown to survive. It’s linked to the dorsal vagal state and may feel like numbness, disconnection, fatigue, or emotional paralysis.
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The fawn response is a trauma response where a person tries to appease, submit, or avoid conflict to stay safe. It’s often seen in survivors of relational trauma and can look like people-pleasing, over-apologizing, or putting others' needs ahead of one’s own.
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You might notice chronic anxiety, emotional numbness, panic attacks, irritability, shutdown, or compulsive behaviors like overeating or overworking. These are signs your nervous system is in a survival state.
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Yes. Somatic therapy uses body-based tools to regulate the nervous system, helping clients exit survival states and build safety, presence, and connection in the body.
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Polyvagal theory explains how the nervous system shifts between connection, mobilization, and shutdown. It helps therapists understand how to work with each state—ventral vagal (safe), sympathetic (mobilized), and dorsal vagal (shutdown)—to support trauma recovery.
Stevie Olson-Spiegel is a Licensed Therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner located in Kansas City. She uses Somatic Experiencing as her main body-based trauma healing modality, as well as EMDR. As an Intuitive Eating Counselor, she uses these principles to help her clients challenge their relationship with their cultural misconceptions about their body and food.
