Psychologists generally recognize “The Four Fs” as the altered-states that make up the trauma response – fight, flight, freeze and fawn. By understanding these four states, we can identify them if/when they arise in us, and undergo treatment programs designed to properly regulate them.
How does your body respond when you perceive danger or a threat? Often known as a trauma response, it is an initial reaction that is triggered when there is a perception of or an actual threat, like an oncoming car or a growling dog.
Fight, flight, freeze, fawn: the four types of trauma response. Healthy stress responses aren't inherently bad as it helps you assert yourself in short-term situations.
This model elaborates four basic defensive structures that develop out of our instinctive Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn responses to severe abandonment and trauma (heretofore referred to as the 4Fs).
Pete Walker's “Complex Trauma: From Surviving to Thriving,” explores the four F's of complex trauma, fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, to help survivors understand their coping mechanisms and reactions, and begin to work towards actions that may better serve them in their life and relationships.
The 'fight or flight' response is how people sometimes refer to our body's automatic reactions to fear. There are actually 5 of these common responses, including 'freeze', 'flop' and 'friend', as well as 'fight' or 'flight'.
Pete Walker describes the structure "4F" of Psychological trauma, where "F" is the main defense that a person uses due to injury. By defenses, we mean such primitive reactions as Fight (fight), Flight (run), Freeze (freeze), and the author also adds the Fawn reaction (serve) to them.
In the most extreme situations, you might have lapses of memory or “lost time.” Schauer & Elbert (2010) refer to the stages of trauma responses as the 6 “F”s: Freeze, Flight, Fight, Fright, Flag, and Faint.
Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are a broader collection of natural bodily reactions to stressful, frightening, or dangerous events. This sympathetic nervous system response dates back to our ancestors coming face-to-face with dangerous animals.
Overthinking is caused due to various reasons like fear, intolerance to uncertainty, trauma, or perfectionism. Overthinking can also be a symptom of already existing mental health conditions such as generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety, or depression.
A comprehensive review of the litera- ture on complex trauma suggests seven primary domains of impairment ob- served in exposed children: attachment, biology, affect regulation, dissociation (ie, alterations in consciousness), behav- ioral regulation, cognition, and self-con- cept.
Signs of Trauma. “Trauma is different for everyone,” Choi says. But two of the more common reactions, she says, are feeling very strong emotions or feeling little. “You might have overwhelming negative emotions or not be able to stop crying.
In evolutionary psychology, people often speak of the four Fs which are said to be the four basic and most primal drives (motivations or instincts) that animals (including humans) are evolutionarily adapted to have, follow, and achieve: fighting, fleeing, feeding and mating (the final word beginning with the letter "M" ...
Positive Characteristics of the Four F's
Flight types: disengagement, healthy retreat, industriousness, know-how, perseverance. Freeze types: acute awareness, mindfulness, poised readiness, peace, presence. Fawn types: love and service, compromise, listening, fairness, peacemaking.
To easily recall some of the functions, you can remember the famous 5 F's, which are: Feeding, Fleeing, Fighting, Feeling and... Fornicating, the last one being, really, just a fancy word for Sex.
SAMHSA, a leader in the nationwide movement for trauma-informed care, conceptualizes trauma using the “3 Es”: Event(s), Experience of Event(s), and Effect(s) (SAMHSA, 2014).
The six functional areas of Marine Leader development, also known as the “six f's.” The six f's are fidelity, fighter, finances, family, future, and fitness. Marines are encouraged to set goals within each area in order to be an effective leader.
Rather than only using trauma responses to answer threats, we constantly feel threatened, and become unable to exit that state of mind. Psychologists generally recognize “The Four Fs” as the altered-states that make up the trauma response – fight, flight, freeze and fawn.
Fawning is an adaptive survival response to prolonged or complex trauma. The fawn response is characterized by placating and appeasing behavior directed toward the perpetrator of abuse, in an attempt to reduce their volatility and abusiveness towards oneself and/or others (e.g., children, siblings, family pets).
The Trauma Test is a brief self-administered rating scale. It is useful in determining the degree to which you struggle with the aftermath of trauma, anxiety or depression, nervous system overarousal, and difficulty with healing and recovery.
This defines the 6 streams of the state's trauma services: MTS, Metropolitan, Urban, Regional, Rural, and Remote.