There are four essential features that make an event traumatic:
- We receive insufficient social support, even if other people are present
- We are powerless to prevent them from happening
- Traumatic events arrive unexpectedly. We don’t anticipate them, or even if we do, we don’t anticipate how awful they will be
- Disoriented, confused and alone, we cannot think what to do next
The eSCAPe protocol has been designed to “Do the opposite of trauma.”
The human brain has evolved very specific strategies to protect us in situations where our lives may be at risk.
Most neuroscientists use the term traumatic stress for such situations. We navigate the world and respond to traumatic stress with three specific and very different hard wired neural networks that mobilize our metabolism and instigate automatic behaviors with the aim of ensuring that we continue to live.
The Survival Brain – focuses on our individual survival without much regard for anyone else.
The Social Engagement Brain – promotes safety through cooperative social interaction, meaning the ability to listen, speak, reflect, empathize, and cooperate. It is our social engagement brain that utilizes the strategy of civility.
The Surveillance Brain – functions like a sentry between the two states, trying to decide whether the survival brain or social engagement brain should be in charge.
All three neural networks were necessary for our survival in the past.
We exist today because some ancestor fought an enemy to the death and lived. In the past, some ancestor ran from a flood or fire and survived. Still others froze, collapsed, and, taken for dead, were ignored by invading soldiers. If something truly dangerous happens, we will still need our survivor brain which defaults to these ancient reptilian and mammalian strategies. We will fight, flee or freeze.
On the other hand, we exist today because other ancestors figured out that trading with the neighboring tribe might result in a better outcome than fighting, fleeing or freezing. Exchanging food for arrow points was also a good survival strategy. The survival brain and social engagement brain are thus complementary strategies with same goal, our well-being and safety.
The surveillance brain is necessary because it’s not always clear when we are safe and when we are not.
Should we run from the tall stranger walking towards us or should we ask him for directions? A strange woman is knocking at our door. Will she be furious if we aren’t interested in her religious pamphlets or does she want to welcome us to the neighborhood with a plate of cookies?
Faced with an ambiguous threat, our surveillance brain operates between the other two as a transitional state. Like the proverbial deer in the headlights, our surveillance brain makes us halt whatever we were doing and scan for danger. We stop reading social cues and have trouble focusing on what other people are saying. We can talk, but it’s hard to find the right words. We can behave in ways deemed inappropriate by our culture. For example, we can distract other people by speaking in a voice that is too loud or too soft. We can smile too much or not enough.
It’s not always clear when we are safe and when we are not.
Many seemingly out of control people are reacting to the world governed by their surveillance brain. Some governed by their surveillance brain are on the edge of shifting into their survival brain.
For them, eSCAPe brings enough sense of safety that they can quickly return to social engagement brain governance. Some extremely agitated people are already governed by their survival brain and require longer, more consistent use of eSCAPe to return to social engagement brain governance.
