Fear Paralysis

A panic attack before a new meeting, the desire to hole up in one’s room or shy away from social engagements, fear of embarrassment, failure or separation, anxiety and extreme sensitivity to touch are all manifestations of a delayed integrated fear paralysis reflex. 

When FPR, or the withdrawal reflex, remains strong and prominent, we may react with a version of immobility and isolation. For some, a need to control the environment results in disordered eating, perfectionism and a strong desire for predictable, structured routine. Addressing the challenges of overactive FPR involve mimicking the pre-birth movements in utero, where a fetus tests safety within a water environment. 

Fear paralysis emerges as the first defensive reflex, as early as five weeks and integrates in utero between nine and thirty-two weeks. Known as the withdrawal reflex, fear paralysis involves an instinctual shutdown, or freeze, when stressors in both the internal or external environment are detected. In evolutionary terms, the animal instinct is reptilian, and you might imagine a stunned animal who is frozen and on high alert for predators after hearing a sudden sound. Some animals faint or play dead as a total protective shutdown. For mammals, we continue to develop the ability to assess and mobilize away from stressors. The reflex creates the foundation for learning to navigate with perceived safety.

Our body builds feelings of safety in conjunction with the Automatic Nervous System (ANS), which consists of the parasympathetic and the sympathetic parts that balance calm with alertness. Within the parasympathetic nervous system, the dorsal vagal nerve is the part that relates to FPR, responsible for reactions that lower the heart rate, breathing and relaxing the bowels to release waste. This is also the system responsible for the ability of animals to ‘play dead.’

If stressors, either from the outside environment or from the mother, are substantial, the FPR may not effectively develop and integrate within the body. It results in challenges throughout our lives related to fear. Addressing those challenges of immobilization, we can use reflex integration to bring the body back to its earliest movements, in a watery pre-birth environment.