Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Managing the Freeze Response: Dissociation, Emotional Shutdown, and Creating Safety

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Apr 1, 2024

Explore the freeze response to stress with Dr. Rick and Forrest as they discuss coping strategies, dissociation, and creating safety. Learn about stress responses in relationships, self-confidence, and managing tendencies in a relationship. Discover strategies for moving through dissociation, strengthening self-awareness, and seeing yourself as a source of safety.

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INSIGHT

Stress Response Logic

Stress responses are adaptive survival strategies, not inherently bad behaviors.
People develop habitual responses (fight, flight, freeze, fawn) based on self-efficacy and environment.

INSIGHT

Green Zone vs. Red Zone

Stress responses have adaptive and maladaptive versions, spanning green (responsive) and red (reactive) zones.
People address safety and satisfaction needs in either stressful or calm ways.

INSIGHT

Stress Responses as Personalities

Reframe stress responses as personality tendencies with healthier and less healthy expressions.
Fawning, for example, can manifest as prosocial behavior or maladaptive self-abandonment.

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What do dissociation, avoidance, and emotional shutdown all have in common? They’re connected to the “freeze” response to stress. In one of our favorite episodes to date, Dr. Rick and Forrest explore the freeze response in detail.

They talk about what stress responses are, how they impact our behavior, and why different people tend to default to different coping strategies. Forrest explains what freezing looks like in practice, and why the freeze response can be particularly difficult to navigate. Dr. Rick then shares a number of helpful strategies for working with the freeze response, including strengthening self-confidence, and the feeling of ourselves as someone who can create safety. Towards the end of the episode they discuss managing these tendencies in a relationship.

You can watch this episode on YouTube.

Key Topics:

0:00: Introduction

1:15: Understanding stress responses

9:05: Stress responses in relationship

15:25: Why it's hard to see that you're freezing

19:05: Dissociation, and what freezing looks like in practice

23:55: Steps of moving through dissociation

30:05: Self-awareness, ‘global’ conditioning, and unconditional positive regard

38:10: How Rick would work with someone who freezes: a hypothetical case study

53:45: Seeing yourself as a source of safety

1:02:55: Recap

Offer from Dr. Rick: If you'd like to improve your self-worth, check out Rick's new 4-hour, live online workshop. You'll learn methods and practices that can actually change your brain and your habits, so you start nurturing your sense of worth and belonging. Our listeners can get 20% off with coupon code BeingWell20: https://selfworthworkshop.com/

Forrest is now writing on Substack, check out his work there.

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