In an Unspoken Voice

by Peter A Levine

  On the Serengeti

  We are troop animals and have a close kinship with other pack mammals. We live in family groups and tribes, join clubs, rely on neighbors and friends, form political parties and identify with our national (and even international) community. Recognizing our mammalian status provides us with important information on the nature of trauma and recovery, as well as on how we interact with our clients, and with other humans.

  A herd of gazelle grazes peacefully in a lush wadi. The snap of a twig, the rustling of some bushes, a fleeting shadow or a few molecules of a particular scent alert one member of the herd. It arrests its movement and stiffens in readiness. This abrupt cessation of movement makes the animal less likely to be detected by the predator. It also lets the gazelle “pause,” giving it the opportunity to organize an optimal escape route. In addition, the other animals of the herd instantly attune to its postural shift by arresting their activity as well. They all scan together (many more ears, noses and eyes), better to localize and identify the source of threat. There is a similar response to potential threat from an army squad on patrol in enemy territory.

  Imagine strolling leisurely in an open meadow. A shadow suddenly moves into the periphery of your vision. How do you respond? Instinctively, your previous motions stop. You may crouch slightly in a flexed posture, and your heart rate will change as your autonomic nervous system is engaged. After this momentary “arrest” response, your eyes open wide. Without willing it, your head turns in the direction of the shadow (or sound) in an attempt to locate and identify it. Your neck, back, legs and feet muscles are working together to turn your body, which extends and lengthens. Your eyes narrow as your pelvis and head shift horizontally to give an optimal, panoramic view of your surroundings. What is your internal state? What other intangible aspects of yourself do you feel or sense in response to seeing the moving shadow? Most people will feel alert and engaged, even curious. Perhaps you feel a hint of excitement and anticipation or, possibly, of danger.

  Animals and humans also need to know if one of their own has aggressive intentions. Ignoring such signals may well put you in harm’s way. In sessions with hundreds of rape victims, I have discovered that many could recall the early presence of danger signals that they had ignored or overridden. They could remember the man staring at them as they left a restaurant or the fleeting shadow as they passed a street corner.

  I have also worked with several rapists who graphically described precisely how they knew (from a woman’s posture and gait) who was fearful (or propped up with false bravado) and would thus be easy prey. The precision and accuracy of these perpetrators’ assessments were truly unsettling. Although their capacity to empathize and read subtle emotions was greatly impaired, their predatory ability to read fear and helplessness was expertly honed. They made deliberate use of the innate skills that we tend to dismiss at our own peril.

  One’s posture and facial muscles signal emotional states, not only to others, but to oneself as well.13 We shall see in the following sections that, as social creatures, it is through empathy that we make our deepest communications. To do this we must be able to “resonate” with the sensations and emotions of others; we must, in other words, be able to feel the same things as those around us feel. The way we indicate this is primarily nonverbal; it is through our postures and expressive emotions.

  Biological, or postural, tuning is also the foundation for the “therapeutic resonance” that is vitally important in helping people heal from trauma. A therapist who is not aware of how his or her own body reacts to (i.e., resonates with) the fear, rage, helplessness and shame in another person will not be able to guide clients by tracking their sensations and navigating them safely through the sometimes treacherous (albeit therapeutic) waters of traumatic sensations. At the same time, by learning how to track their own sensations, therapists can avoid absorbing the fear, rage and helplessness of their clients. It is important to understand that when therapists perceive that they must protect themselves from their clients’ sensations and emotions, they unconsciously block those clients from therapeutically experiencing them. By distancing ourselves from their anguish, we distance ourselves from them and from the fears they are struggling with. To take a self-protective stance is to abandon our clients precipitately. At the same time, we also greatly increase the likelihood of their exposure to secondary or vicarious traumatization and burnout. Therapists must learn, from their own successful encounters with their own traumas, to stay present with their clients. This is the reason healing trauma must necessarily engage the awareness of the living, sensing, “knowing” body in both client and therapist. “Perhaps the most striking evidence of successful empathy,” says the analyst Leston Havens, “is the occurrence in our bodies of sensations that the patient has described in his or hers.”14

  Through the Eyes of a Neuroscientist

  The ability to detect danger in the posture of others has been studied by the neuroscientist Beatrice Gelder.15 Her research has demonstrated that the brain of an observer reacts more powerfully to the body language of a person in a posture denoting fear than it does even to a fearful facial expression. Like the Gorgon Medusa, looks of fear can paralyze or, at least, evoke our own potent fear-based reactions. Yet, as powerful as facial expressions are in conveying danger, a person’s uptight posture and furtive movements make us even more uncomfortable.† Wouldn’t you, too, startle to the sudden recoiling of the hiker in front of you a split second before you heard the hissing and rattle of a coiled snake? This type of imitative behavior occurs throughout the animal world. If, for example, one bird in a flock on the ground suddenly takes off, all the other birds will follow immediately after; they do not need to know why. The hypothetical contrarian bird that stays behind may not live to pass its genes to the next generation.

  In combination, a fearful face, hypervigilance and a tight constricted posture are powerfully compelling. They trigger us to prepare our bodies for action, to locate the source of threat and then to respond immediately. Perhaps a perceived threat comes from an “uptight” person readying to strike out in aggravated fear. In our day-to-day life, most of us deal with chronically fearful or angry people by simply avoiding them whenever we can. On the other hand, when you meet people whose posture expresses grace and acceptance, you are calmed by their ease. Thus, we are particularly affected by the serenity, compassion and profound quiet of people like Nelson Mandela, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama or a loving mother peacefully nursing her infant.

  Gelder’s research shows the power of fearful postures in activating specific areas of an observer’s brain—areas that happy and neutral postures leave inactive.‡ In addition, these brain regions, stimulated by the recognition of frightened body stances, are further differentiated from regions involved in the reading of fearful faces. Postural recognition centers include multiple brain regions, some that process emotions and others that primarily prepare us for action. According to Gelder, “You could almost say that when you see a fearful body you react with your whole body.” This observation supports the basic Darwinian tenet that the human ability to rapidly read bodies and to respond both unequivocally and instantaneously is highly advantageous. Reading others’ bodies predisposes us to actions that increase our chances of survival. In order to be effective and immediate, such postural resonance bypasses the conscious mind. Rational deliberation could compromise survival by confusing and slowing us down. Survival reactions under threatening circumstances generally need to be swift and sure, not pondered. According to researchers Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia, “our perceptions of the motor acts and emotive reactions [italics mine] of others appear to be united by a mirror mechanism that permits our brain to immediately understand what we are seeing, feeling, or imagining others to be doing, as it triggers the same neural structures … that are responsible for our own actions and emotions.”16

  Had our neocortical (thinking) brain preempted our instinctual lower (action-based) circuitry, you might have a
n inner dialogue something like this: “That guy’s jaw and shoulders look tight and angry as he comes near. His eyes are shifty … but his shirt—well, it’s certainly a pleasant color and looks like the one I almost bought at Macy’s.” While your survival “bottom-up” processing center is alerting your body (Avoid this guy, period—no discussion!), your “top-down” processing is meandering through a much slower language-based analysis.

  Just like the gazelles, humans are acutely attuned to danger and prepared to act decisively to meet it. The posture, gestures and facial expressions of people tell the untold tale of what did and did not happen when threatened and overwhelmed. Habitual postures tell us what paths need to be retraced and resolved. In order to facilitate bottom-up processing, therapists need to have a precise feel for the instinctual imperative that was thwarted in their client at a moment of overwhelming fright. The traumatized body-mind was, in other words, poised in readiness but failed to fully orchestrate its meaningful course of action. As in my accident (Chapter 1) we have to help clients discover just where in her body she readied for action, and which action had been blocked in its execution.

  Other research confirms the pertinence of instantaneous body reading. A recent study carried out by the U.S. Army suggests that the speed with which the brain reads emotions in the body language of others and interprets sensations in one’s own body is central to avoiding imminent threats like hidden booby traps, who might be carrying a hidden bomb or who had recently buried one.17 In this same article, the neurologist Antonio Damasio adds that “emotions are practical action programs that work to solve a problem, often before we’re conscious of it. These processes are at work continually, in pilots, leaders of expeditions, parents, in all of us.”

  Therapeutic approaches that neglect the body, focusing mainly on thoughts (top-down processing), will consequently be limited. I propose instead that, in the initial stages of restorative work, bottom-up processing needs to be standard operating procedure. In other words, addressing a client’s “bodyspeak” first and then, gradually, enlisting his or her emotion, perception and cognition is not merely valuable, it’s essential. The “talking cure” for trauma survivors should give way to the unspoken voice of the silent, but strikingly powerful, bodily expressions as they surface to “sound off” on behalf of the wisdom of the deeper self.

  Challenges of Therapy

  Therapists working with traumatized individuals frequently “pick up” and mirror the postures of their clients and hence their emotions of fear, terror, anger, rage and helplessness. The way we respond to these signifiers will be pivotal in helping traumatized individuals deal with those difficult sensations and emotions. If we recoil because we cannot contain and accept them, then we abandon our clients … if we are overwhelmed, then we are both lost. If we embody some small portion of a Dalai Lama–like equanimity and “composure,” we are able to share and help contain our client’s terrors in a “blanket of compassion.”

  We should not underestimate how compelling instinctual fear reactions are and how readily they can become maladaptive. In the event of a fire, for example, people will tend to adopt the uptight, frightened body posture of the person next to them. They are then readied to spring into action and flee the movie theater. However, such behavior can also set the ground for contagious panic. As each person mirrors the fear posture of those nearby, he or she simultaneously senses fear and transmits that fear-posture to others in the group. Transmittance of fear through postural resonance creates an escalating situation, a positive feedback loop (with negative consequences). Panic contagion can spread to the whole group almost instantly. FDR presciently warned us about avoiding this kind of contagion. If a moment presents itself, we may beneficially ask ourselves, is there really something threatening? In the example of the theater fire you could, before running, assess the situation independently. If you smell smoke then there should be no hesitation; on the other hand, if you see a group of teenagers laughing, then your rational brain might tell you to check things out some more before running full steam toward the exit. Rational assessment can be an efficient tempering of the extreme instinctual command when the person next to us (whom we are mirroring) is mistaken or overreacting. However, often in therapy the attempt to place reason over instinct is a serious failure, a likely disaster.

  In the therapy situation, the therapist must strike a balance between mirroring a client’s distress enough for them to learn about the client’s sensations, but not so much as to increase the client’s level of fear as in contagion panic. This can only happen if the therapist has learned the ins and outs of his or her own sensations and emotions and is relatively comfortable with them. Only then can we really help clients contain their troubling sensations and emotions so that they can learn that, no matter how horrible they feel, it will not go on forever.

  Fear Paralysis

  On the Serengeti, one herd member’s startled reaction cues the other gazelles to anticipate the worst and vigilantly scan the environment in an attempt to locate the potential source of threat. If, however, they fail to detect the stalking predator, they readily let down their guard and innocently return to grazing.§ Moments later, another gazelle arrests to the sound of a twig snapping and, once again, the herd is alerted, the animals’ “collective nervous system” activated, tuning and readying them for all-out action. They stiffen in unison as their muscles tense in preparation for maximal exertion in flight.

  Seizing the moment, a stalking cheetah leaps from its cover of dense shrubbery. The herd springs together as one organism, darting away from the advancing predator. One young gazelle falters for a split second, then recovers its footing. In a blur, the cheetah lunges toward its intended victim. The chase is on at a blazing sixty-five miles an hour! At the moment of contact (or just before, as it senses that the end is near), the young gazelle collapses to the ground. The stone-still animal has entered an altered state of consciousness shared by all mammals when death appears imminent. It is not “pretending” to be dead and may, in fact, be uninjured.18 It is in a state of fear paralysis.

  Paralysis, an Ancestral Root

  We die so that we can live.

  —A father opossum to his

  children in the animated

  film Over the Hedge

  One’s first line of defense against a predator, an attacker or other source of danger is generally an active defense. You duck, dodge and retract; you twist and raise your arms to protect against a mortal blow. And most well known, you flee from potential predators or fight them when you perceive that you are stronger than your adversary, or if you have become trapped by them. In addition to the well-known fight and flight reactions, there is a third, lesser-known reaction to threat: immobilization. Ethologists call this “default” state of paralysis tonic immobility (TI). It’s one of the three primary instinctual responses available to reptiles and mammals when faced with threat from predation. It occurs when active responses are not likely to be effective in escaping or removing the source of threat (as by fighting). The familiarity of the other two, fight or flight, is due largely to the overarching and extended influence of Walter B. Cannon’s eminent work carried out in the 1920s on the sympathetic–adrenal nervous system.19 Far less appreciated, though, are the profound implications of the human immobility response in the formation and treatment of trauma.20 Taking into account the more than seventy-five years of ethological and physiological research since Cannon’s discovery, fight-or-flight could be updated with the acronym “the A, and four Fs”: Arrest (increased vigilance, scanning), Flight (try first to escape), Fight (if the animal or person is prevented from escaping), Freeze (fright—scared stiff) and Fold (collapse into helplessness). In two sentences: Trauma occurs when we are intensely frightened and are either physically restrained or perceive that we are trapped. We freeze in paralysis and/or collapse in overwhelming helplessness. Note: Although some recent authors tend to call the initial arrest response “freezing,” I will avoid possible confu
sion by using the term “freezing” only to describe behaviors involving tonic immobility.‖

  In freezing, your muscles stiffen against a mortal blow, and you feel “scared stiff.” On the other hand, when you experience death as being unequivocally imminent (as when bared fangs are ready to annihilate you), your muscles collapse as though they have lost all their energy. In this “default” reaction (when it has become chronic, as it does in trauma), you feel that you are in a state of helpless resignation and lack the energy to fuel your life and move forward. This collapse, defeat and loss of the will to live are at the very core of deep trauma.

  Being “scared stiff” or “frozen in fear”—or, alternatively, collapsing and going numb—accurately describes the physical, visceral, bodily experience of intense fear and trauma. Since the body enacts all of these survival options, it is the body’s narration that therapists must address in order to understand these reactions and to mobilize them in transforming trauma.

  It may help therapists (and their clients) to know that immobility appears to serve at least four important survival functions in mammals. First, it is a last-ditch survival strategy, colloquially known as “playing opossum.” Rather than pretense, though, it is a deadly serious innate biological tactic. With a slow, small animal like the opossum, flight or fight is unlikely to be successful. By passively resisting, in the grand tradition of Gandhi, the animal’s inertness tends to inhibit the predator’s aggression and reduce its urge to kill and to eat. In addition, a motionless animal is frequently abandoned (especially when it also emits a putrid odor like rotting meat) and not eaten by such predators as the coyote—unless, of course, this animal is very hungry.a With such “death feigning,” the opossum may live to escape, plodding along into another day. Similarly, the cheetah may drag its motionless prey to a safe place, removed from potential competitors, and return to her lair to fetch her cubs (so as to share the kill with them). While she is gone, the gazelle may awaken from its paralysis and, in an unguarded moment, make a hasty escape. Second, immobility affords a certain degree of invisibility: an inert body is much less likely to be seen by a predator. Third, immobility may promote group survival: when hunted by a predator pack, the collapse of one individual may distract the pack long enough for the rest of the herd to escape.