"The language of " fight, flight, or freeze" to describe the body's instinctive survival responses to perceived threats is commonly understood. But some clinicians and researchers now recognize six distinct threat responses: fight, flight, freeze, please/appease (sometimes called fawning), attach/cry for help, and collapse. While our threat responses originate in our earliest experiences of safety and danger, they don't disappear when we grow up. They remain deeply wired survival strategies -patterns we unconsciously carry with us into adult life."
"The language of " fight, flight, or freeze" to describe the body's instinctive survival responses to perceived threats is commonly understood. But some clinicians and researchers now recognize six distinct threat responses: fight, flight, freeze, please/appease (sometimes called fawning), attach/cry for help, and collapse. While our threat responses originate in our earliest experiences of safety and danger, they don't disappear when we grow up."
Human bodies deploy six instinctive threat responses: fight, flight, freeze, please/appease (fawning), attach/cry for help, and collapse. These responses develop from earliest experiences of safety and danger and persist into adult life. Each response functions as a survival strategy that can operate unconsciously. The please/appease response seeks to defuse threat through placating behavior. The attach/cry-for-help response seeks external support or protection. The collapse response can involve shutdown, dissociation, or immobilization. Recognizing these distinct patterns clarifies why individuals respond differently to perceived threats and highlights the long-term influence of early relational safety and danger on adult behavior.
Read at Harvard Business Review
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