What happens in your body when you experience trauma? Why do humans get stuck in trauma while animals naturally recover?
In Waking the Tiger, trauma expert Peter Levine explores how trauma works in both humans and animals. He reveals the biological mechanisms behind trauma and explains why our natural healing process often gets disrupted.
Keep reading to discover what trauma is and learn why your body’s stress response might be keeping you stuck in a cycle of anxiety and fear.
How Trauma Works
Levine explains how trauma works, providing a clear definition and using biology to explain how people get traumatized.
According to Levine, trauma is a chronic disorder that someone develops after experiencing a deeply distressing event. He emphasizes that trauma isn’t just a psychological disorder; it’s a condition that affects a person’s entire being—body and mind. Trauma can cause many wide-ranging symptoms, including flashbacks, anxiety, depression, physical ailments, and behavioral issues.
Levine contends that trauma is far more common than most people realize—he asserts that everyone has been traumatized to some degree. One reason for this is that major traumatic events are common. War, natural disasters, and physical and sexual abuse are frequent occurrences around the world, and they often cause major trauma.
| PTSD and C-PTSD Just as psychologists make distinctions between these two types of trauma (shock and developmental), they also distinguish between two types of resulting mental health disorders: post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD). Generally, shock trauma leads to PTSD while developmental trauma leads to C-PTSD. C-PTSD typically has many of the same symptoms as PTSD, such as persistent anxiety, hyperalertness, and intrusive flashbacks. On top of this, C-PTSD involves symptoms like reduced emotional control, challenges in building relationships, and a self-identity built around severe guilt and shame. C-PTSD treatment typically includes interventions that specifically address these additional, unique symptoms—for example, patients build a trusting relationship with a therapist who shows them that it’s possible to rely on others. This may explain why Levine recommends working with a professional to resolve developmental trauma. |
Another reason trauma symptoms are so common is that seemingly minor threats can cause major trauma if they happen to someone who’s particularly vulnerable. People who are less capable of protecting themselves, have weaker physical health, or believe themselves to be helpless are easily traumatized. For instance, a child may be traumatized by the minor scare of getting lost at a shopping mall if they’re very young, malnourished, or feel helpless because they were raised by abusive parents.
| “Trauma” With a Lowercase “t” Minor threats can cause lasting psychological and physiological trauma symptoms even in people who aren’t unusually vulnerable, supporting Levine’s claim that everybody is traumatized to some degree. Mundane distressing experiences like arguments with loved ones, career setbacks, or financial burdens can trigger a trauma response—especially if too many happen in quick succession, overwhelming your ability to emotionally cope. For example, someone who loses their job and gets divorced in the same month may develop high blood pressure, paranoia, and feelings of helplessness. Some refer to these symptoms as “trauma” with a lowercase “t” (as opposed to “Trauma” caused by major threats like wars, natural disasters, and sexual or physical abuse). However, labeling it as a “lesser” type of trauma may lead individuals to minimize or ignore their traumatic experiences. Arguably, this can exacerbate their suffering and delay recovery by discouraging them from seeking help or validation for their experiences. |
How People Become Traumatized
Levine argues that trauma isn’t the result of irreversible damage to any part of a person’s body or mind. Rather, a person suffers from chronic trauma symptoms because their body hasn’t completed its physiological stress response to the original traumatic event.
Levine explains that, when threatened, animals (and humans) generate a burst of stress energy and instinctively choose from three possible responses: fight, flight, or freeze. The freeze response—the most relevant to human trauma—serves as a last-ditch survival mechanism, allowing prey animals to play dead and potentially escape when a predator’s guard is down. It also induces a dissociative state where pain is not experienced, sparing the animal from needless suffering as it’s being eaten. This frozen yet high-stress state is temporary—animals naturally unload excess stress energy after a threatening event, often shaking or trembling to get it out of their system.
Humans Interfere With Their “Freeze” Response
According to Levine, humans (like animals) enter a “freeze” state in response to highly stressful events. However, unlike animals, humans resist and suppress their natural stress recovery response. The process of exiting the freeze response and releasing trapped energy typically involves intense physical sensations, including trembling, shaking, and sweating. These sensations are often frightening or uncomfortable, so people attempt to suppress them. Humans’ highly developed neocortex allows them to do so, shutting down the stress recovery response (which occurs in more primitive parts of the brain) before it reaches its natural conclusion.
Levine explains that, when humans suppress their stress response, a vicious cycle begins: They become frozen in this trauma-response state, leaving them trapped in a state of constant stress. The persistent feelings of anxiety and fear that accompany this state further drive them to suppress their stress response. Over time, this stress energy continues to build, manifesting as trauma symptoms.
