By: Darrian M. McKiernan, MFT-1

Most people will experience some form of trauma throughout their lifetime. There are many experiences that can be traumatic, including: an accident, a natural disaster, abuse, neglect, or emotional manipulation. When attempting to understand trauma from a therapeutic perspective, it is helpful to recognize what happens in our bodies as we live through a traumatic event.

Trauma in the Brain:

A traumatized brain performs very differently than a non-traumatized brain. When you are feeling safe, your prefrontal cortex is easily accessible. This part of the brain is responsible for a wide variety of functions including goal setting, impulse control, decision making, and moderating social behavior. Most people’s prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until about the age of 25. Consequently, it is no surprise that we often question our choices throughout youth and adolescence.

The amygdala is a part of our brain that is highly reactive when experiencing trauma. It is responsible for storing emotional experiences, giving them meaning, and processing strong emotions like fear and pleasure. When we perceive a threat to our physical or emotional safety, the amygdala immediately activates. This helps motivate us to act quickly and remove ourselves from the dangerous situation. If the threat is perceived as minor, the prefrontal cortex will overpower the amygdala and direct you towards a functional solution. When the threat is perceived as major, however, the amygdala will overthrow the prefrontal cortex and kickstart your survival instinct. It is then nearly impossible to maintain impulse control. Once you are functioning from a place of survival, you will respond in 1 of 3 ways: fight, flight, or freeze.

The Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response:

When the body goes into survival mode, it has an emotional response, a coping response, and a nervous system response. If your instinct is to fight, your might feel an emotional response of rage and anger. You then will try to cope with this feeling by attacking, defending, or confronting the situation. In contrast, if flight is your instinct, you might feel an emotional response of fear or panic. You then feel the need to run or avoid the situation in order to cope with your emotional experience. During a fight or flight response, your blood pressure will spike and the nervous system will provide a release of adrenaline.

When your brain assesses the traumatic situation and deems both fight and flight unsafe, you will likely experience a freeze response. This is an attempt to protect yourself by conserving energy and mentally detaching from the experience. During a freeze response, you may feel hopeless, numb, or depressed. You begin to dissociate and shut down to cope with these overwhelming emotions. The nervous system will put our bodies into conservation mode, lowering our blood pressure and releasing numbing endorphins. A freeze response is commonly triggered when experiencing sexual abuse because the powerless nature of the situation, unable to fight and unable to flee.

The Post-Traumatic Response:

Following a traumatic event, the emotional experience is filed away in the amygdala. The purpose of this is to help us learn from the pain and protect us from experiencing similar danger in the future. Problems occur, however, when we are no longer in danger but we continue to respond to situations as if we are. If we do not reprocess the traumatic incident and learn how to take away more helpful messages, we will become hyper-triggered by anything that resembles the painful memory. If you are hoping to reprocess your trauma and minimize the related symptoms, reach out to a local therapist to inquire about how you can begin your journey of healing.

“Trauma creates change you don’t choose. Healing created change you DO choose.”

-Michelle Rosenthal