+

Responses to Childhood
Trauma: Fight-Flight-or Freeze

Alyssa Hill, MA
Topics in Childhood Development

Prevalence of child traumatic

experiences

According

to Dr. Bruce Perry (2003) in Effects of Traumatic Events on

Children:
Each

year approximately five million children in the United

States have a traumatic experience
Millions more are living in the terrorizing atmosphere of
domestic violence
Natural disasters, car accidents, life-threatening medical
conditions, painful procedures, exposures to community
violence all can have traumatic impact on the child
By the time a child reaches the age of eighteen, the
probability that he or she will have been touched directly by
interpersonal or community violence is approximately one in
four.
Traumatic experiences can have a devastating impact in the
child, altering their physical, emotional, cognitive, and social
development

Psychological Trauma
Psychological trauma is the unique individual experience
of an event or enduring conditions, in which:
1.

The individuals ability to integrate his/her emotional

experience is overwhelmed, or

2.

The individual experiences (subjectively) a threat to life,

bodily integrity, or sanity. (Pearlman & Saakvitne, 1995, p.
60)

Thus, a traumatic event or situation creates psychological

trauma when it overwhelms the individuals ability to
cope, and leaves that person fearing death, annihilation,
mutilation, or psychosis. The individual mayfeel
emotionally, cognitively, and physically overwhelmed.
(Giller, 1999)

+
Childhood trauma increases the
risk of

Social Problems

School failure

Victimization

Anti-social behavior

Teenage pregnancy

Adolescent drug abuse

Neuropsychiatric

Post-traumatic stress disorder

Dissociative disorders

Conduct disorders

Medical problems

Heart disease

Asthma

(Perry, 2003)

Survival Strategies
Hyperarousal

Hypervigilance
Anxious
Reactive
Alarm Response
Increase heart rate
Freeze: Fear
Fight: Panic
Flight: Terror

Dissociation
Detached
Numb
Compliant
Decrease heart rate
Suspension of time
De-realization
Mini-psychoses
Fainting
(BD Perry MD, PhD,
2003)

The Alarm State

(Perry, 2003) (Image: http://www.thinklikeahorse.org/flight_or_fight.htm

Dissociation

Acute Post Traumatic Period

Child returns to normal functioning

Aware of internal stimuli

Can perceive the sense of fear and anxiety

Variety of mental attempts to process and understand the

event

Event replays in the mind of the child

Child re-lives the phenomenon

Child creates memories of traumatic even that are complex and

multi-domain

Traumatic memory involves storage and recall of cognitive,

emotional, and motorvestibular information, as well as state
memory

When the events re-play in a child's head, it re-evokes the

emotional memory of being in the midst of the threatening
event
(Perry, 2003)

Post-traumatic stress disorder

a condition of persistent mental and emotional stress

occurring as a result of injury or severe psychological
shock, typically involving disturbance of sleep and constant
vivid recall of the experience, with dulled responses to
others and to the outside world

Children diagnosed with PTSD

Behaviorally impulsive

Hypervigilant

Hyperactive

Withdrawn or depressed

Sleep difficulties

Anxiety

Loss of previous functioning

Slow rate of acquiring new developmental tasks

(Perry, 2003)

In summary

As with all experience -- when the brain activates the

neurophysiological systems associated with alarm or with
dissociation, there will be use-dependent neurobiological
changes (or in young children, use-dependentorganization)
which reflects this activation.

It is these use-dependent changes in the brain development

and organization which underlie the observed emotional,
behavioral, cognitive, social and physiological alterations
following childhood trauma.

In general, the predominant adaptive style of an individual in

the acute traumatic situation will determine which posttraumatic symptoms will develop -- hyperarousal or
dissociative.
(Perry, 2003)

References

Giller, E. (1999). What is psychological trauma? Retrieved

from:
http
://www.sidran.org/resources/for-survivors-and-loved-ones/what-i
s-psychological-trauma
/

Perry, B. (2003). Effects of traumatic events on children: An

introduction. [PDF document]. Retrieved from:
http://www.mentalhealthconnection.org/pdfs/perry-handout-effec
ts-oftrauma.pdf