Your Body is Not Broken; It’s Protective: A Clinical Perspective on Healing

Christina Niven
Feb 15
5 min read

As a Registered Clinical Counsellor (RCC), I often meet clients who arrive in my office feeling exhausted by their own internal reactions. They describe a sudden "hot" flash of anger during a minor disagreement, or desire to “run” after making a mistake in a work meeting, or a "cold" sense of numbness during a family dinner. Most often, they apologize for these reactions, labeling themselves as "dramatic," "unstable," or "broken."

If you have ever felt this way, I want to offer you the same starting point I offer my clients: Your body is not broken; it is highly adapted. Everything you are feeling - the racing heart, the foggy brain, the heavy limbs - is a sophisticated survival strategy orchestrated by your Autonomic Nervous System (ANS).

In my practice, we move beyond the "story" of what’s wrong and begin to learn the "Language of the Body." By integrating the wisdom of Polyvagal Theory, Somatic Experiencing (SE), and the clinical insights of Deb Dana and Pete Walker, we can move you out of survival mode and into a state of integrated safety.

The Hierarchy of Response: Polyvagal Theory

To understand your body, we must understand its "map." Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory suggests that our nervous system operates like a ladder, with three distinct stages that evolved over millions of years to keep us alive (Porges, 2011).

1. The Top Rung: Ventral Vagal (Social Engagement)

This is the state of safety and connection. When you are here, your heart rate is steady and your "social engagement system" is online. Deb Dana (2018) describes this as being "Anchored." In this state, you can make eye contact, feel curious, and your body can focus on "home maintenance" like digestion and immune repair.

2. The Middle Rung: Sympathetic (Mobilization)

When your brain detects a threat, your system drops into the Sympathetic state. This is the realm of Fight or Flight. Your body is flooded with cortisol and adrenaline, preparing you to meet a challenge. In modern life, this often looks like chronic anxiety, perfectionism, or a "short fuse."

3. The Bottom Rung: Dorsal Vagal (Immobilization)

If the threat feels inescapable, your system chooses the Shutdown or Collapse state, also known as the Dorsal Vagal response. It manifests as depression, dissociation, or feeling physically "heavy." This is the state of "Disconnection" (Dana & Porges, 2023).

The Four Threat Responses: How We Survive

In my clinical work, I help clients identify which survival strategy their body has "specialized" in. While we are all familiar with Fight and Flight, the work of Peter Levine and Pete Walker has expanded our understanding of how trauma lives in the tissues.

1. Fight and Flight (The Sympathetic Charge)

Dr. Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing, noted that trauma occurs when the energy for Fight or Flight is thwarted (Levine, 1997). If you wanted to run but felt stuck, that energy remains trapped in your limbs.

Clinical Observation: I often see this as restless legs, jaw clenching, or a constant need to "do" more to outrun a sense of unease.

2. Freeze (The High-Intensity Brake)

Freeze is often misunderstood. Levine (2010) compares it to a car with its foot on the gas and the brake at the same time. You are vibrating with high-arousal energy, but you are physically paralyzed.

Clinical Observation: Clients in Freeze often feel "wired but tired." They are internally chaotic but externally still.

3. Fawn (Survival Through Appeasement)

The "Fawn" response, popularized by Pete Walker (2013), is a unique strategy where you seek safety by merging with the needs of others. Walker (2023) explains that this is a "relational alignment" used to neutralize a threat through people-pleasing.

Clinical Observation: From a Polyvagal lens, this is a hybrid state. You are using your social engagement hardware (Ventral) to perform "kindness," but it is powered by a high-alert survival engine (Sympathetic). You are "smiling" to stay safe, even while you feel hollow inside.

4. Fold/Collapse (The Dorsal Drop)

When all else fails, the body moves into "Fold." This is the true shutdown where muscles lose tone and the mind "goes away".

Clinical Observation: This often presents as "functional collapse"- you are getting through your day, but you feel like a "ghost" in your own life.

The Cost of Chronic Survival Mode: "Biological Debt"

Living in these states creates what recent research calls Biological Debt (Porges & Rosas, 2022). When your system is constantly paying for "security" (survival), it stops paying for "maintenance" (health). This is why chronic stress leads to gut issues, sleep disturbances, and immune fatigue.

As a counsellor, I see my role as helping you "refinance" this debt. We do this through Neuroception—the nervous system’s silent surveillance (Porges, 2017). We teach your body to look for "Glimmers" (cues of safety) to balance out the "Triggers" (cues of danger) (Dana, 2020).

Healing Through the Body: The RCC Approach

In my practice, we don't just talk about your past; we work with how your past is showing up in your body right now. We use two core SE tools:

Titration: We deal with "trapped energy" in tiny, manageable drops so we don't overwhelm you (Levine, 2022).
Pendulation: We practice moving your attention between a place of tension and a place of "resource" or ease (Payne et al., 2021).

A Final Thought

Healing is not about "fixing" a broken machine. It is about tending to a weary, protective system. Whether you fought, fled, froze, or fawned, your body did exactly what it was designed to do: it kept you here.

When we shift from "What is wrong with me?" to "How did my body help me survive?", the nervous system begins to feel safe enough to relax. You are not a problem to be solved; you are a person to be understood and returned to a state of connection.

References

Dana, D. (2018). The polyvagal theory in therapy: Engaging the rhythm of regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.

Dana, D., & Porges, S. W. (Eds.). (2023). Anchored in safety: Clinical applications of polyvagal theory. W. W. Norton & Company.

Levine, P. A. (1997). Waking the tiger: Healing trauma. North Atlantic Books.

Levine, P. A. (2022). Trauma and memory: Brain and body in a search for the living past. North Atlantic Books.

Payne, P., Levine, P. A., & Crane-Godreau, M. A. (2021). Somatic experiencing: Using interoception and proprioception as core mechanisms of trauma healing. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 727739. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.727739

Porges, S. W., & Rosas, G. P. (2022). Polyvagal safety: Attachment, communication, self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.

Walker, P. (2013). Complex PTSD: From surviving to thriving. Azure Coyote.

Walker, P. (2023). The Tao of fully feeling: Harvesting forgiveness out of blame (Updated Ed.). Azure Coyote Publishing.