Your Stone Age Brain is an information handout that describes he evolutionary origins of the freeze-flight-fight response.
Offers theory, guidance, and prompts for mental health professionals. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.
Includes client-friendly guidance. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.
An editable Microsoft PowerPoint version of the resource.
Your Stone Age Brain is an information handout which describes the freeze-flight-fight response: a set of evolutionary adaptations that increase the chances of survival in threatening situations. The ‘hardware’ underlying these responses in modern humans is thought to be unchanged in the last 200,000 years, and psychologists often use a ‘caveman metaphor’ to explain the purpose and function of these responses. Learning about some of the evolutionary pressures exerted on early modern humans helps clients to understand the consequences of living in the present day in a body that has the same ‘programming’.
Understanding the freeze-flight-fight response is important in treatments for many mental health difficulties, particularly anxiety. This resource serves as a valuable psychoeducation tool that explains:
Normalizes intense bodily sensations.
Clarifies why phobic reactions can feel overwhelming and automatic.
Frames fear of judgment as a survival-based sensitivity to threat.
Identify clients with a heightened or sensitive threat detection system.
Introduce the handout and discuss the content.
Explore how the content relates to clients' difficulties.
Reflect on the implications of this information.
The freeze-flight-fight response is a set of evolutionary adaptations that increase the chances of survival in threatening situations. Consciously or unconsciously appraising an event as dangerous triggers an automatic defense cascade of physiological and cognitive responses that prepare the individual to freeze, flee, or fight (Bracha et al, 2004; Kozlowska et al, 2015). The freeze-flight-fight responses are present in many other species (Canon, 1929), and the ‘hardware’ underlying these responses in modern humans is thought to be unchanged in the last 200,000 years (Nitecki & Nitecki, 1994). Psychologists often use the ‘Caveman metaphor’ to help illustrate how ingrained these responses are.
Physiologically, freeze-flight-fight responses are associated with activity in the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Flight and fight are supported by increased activity in the sympathetic branch of the ANS which increases heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and muscle tone, and inhibits digestive function. Freezing is associated with activity in both the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the ANS (Roelofs, 2017).
An overly sensitive freeze-flight-fight response can be a key part of multiple anxiety disorders, resulting in overly frequent or intense experiences of anxiety (Andrews et al, 2003). The clearest example is panic: the cognitive model of panic suggests that misinterpreting benign body symptoms as a threat leads to activation of the freeze-flight-fight system, and often to an exacerbation of the body sensations about which the individual is concerned (Clark, 1996).
Your Stone Age Brain is an information handout which describes some of the evolutionary pressures exerted on early modern humans. It explains why a well-developed freeze-flight-fight system helped our ancestors to survive, and the consequences of living in the present day in a body that has the same ‘programming’.