""Survival mode" has become one of those wellness buzzwords-but most people using it have no idea what it really means. In my role as a trauma therapist, I've observed an increasing number of clients who come in believing they're in a state of survival. The source of their thinking? Not medical professionals, but AI chatbots, social media posts, and well-meaning influencers who misunderstand the term."
"The confusion isn't harmless. People experiencing normal stress responses come to believe they have a chronic neurological dysfunction-or are about to. Ironically, that very belief can create the dysfunction they fear. Misusing the term doesn't just distort language-it can induce suffering. Some of the confusion may come from thinking that survival circuits and survival mode-both terms used in the trauma literature-are the same. But they are not. Here are the differences:"
Survival circuits are innate, short-term brain programs activated by imminent danger to mobilize emergency responses. Survival mode is a chronic dysfunction of those systems that impairs self-awareness and prevents accurate self-diagnosis. Most everyday stress reactions are normal, adaptive sympathetic responses, not signs of neurological illness. AI chatbots, social media, and influencers commonly spread misleading definitions that lead people to mislabel normal stress as chronic survival mode. That mislabeling can produce distress and even provoke the dysfunction feared. Accurate terminology and clinical evaluation prevent harm from misdiagnosis and unnecessary pathologizing of normal stress responses.
Read at Psychology Today
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