02/25/2026
The average therapist sees the animal defences every day in the office. For example, clients who have chronic submission responses tend to present as chronically depressed, hopeless and helpless, ashamed, and feeling less than others, and because we call it depression, we don’t treat it as a trauma symptom. People who chronically have the freeze, deer-in-the-headlights response get an anxiety disorder diagnosis. They’ll report, “I’ve been having panic attacks, I can’t leave the house, I can’t drive the car more than a few blocks.” Those who have chronic fight responses can’t stop fighting, can’t stop being angry, and engage in aggressive behavior including aggression toward their own bodies. Some people with chronic fight responses tend to be violent toward others, some toward themselves, and an even smaller percentage have both. They have aggressive responses toward others and they harm themselves.
We have come to understand – and this is the essence of the body keeping the score – that when something bad happens to us, not just our minds, but our bodies become sensitive to related cues. This is why when people have a car accident, they avoid the place where the accident occurred for months or years afterwards. Or sexual abuse survivors who can’t tolerate being in the company of men of a certain age. The body gets sensitized to anything that vaguely resembles the original event.
