Bracha, Adam S.

Bracha, Dr. Stefan

Williams, Andrew E.

English

CogPrints Cognitive Sciences Eprint Archive

Does "Fight or Flight" Need Updating?

Cognitive Sciences ePrint Archive

Letters
448 Psychosomatics 45:5, September-October 2004
Does “Fight or Flight” Need
Updating?
TO THE EDITOR: Walter Cannon’s
original formulation of the term for the
human response to threat, “fight or
flight,” was coined exactly 75 years
ago, in 1929.1 It is an easily remem-
bered catchphrase that seems to capture
the essence of the phenomena it de-
scribes. It accurately evokes two key
behaviors that we see occurring in re-
sponse to threat. This phrase has led to
certain ingrained assumptions about
what to expect in our patients and, be-
cause of its broad usage, what they ex-
pect of themselves. It is a testament to
the foundational significance of Can-
non’s work that the term he used con-
tinues to shape clinical understanding
and to influence popular culture’s un-
derstanding of stress as well. But the
phrase has not been updated to incor-
porate important advances in the un-
derstanding of the acute response to ex-
treme stress. Specifically, the term
ignores major advances in stress re-
search made since it was coined.
Both human and animal research
on the pan-mammalian response to
stress has advanced considerably since
1929, and it may be time to formulate
a new form of this catchphrase that
presents a more complete and nuanced
picture of how we respond to danger.
The phrase “fight or flight” has in-
fluenced the understanding and expec-
tations of both clinicians and patients;
however, both the order and the com-
pleteness of Cannon’s famous phrase
are suspect. “Fight or flight” mischar-
acterizes the ordered sequence of re-
sponses that mammals exhibit as a
threat escalates or approaches. In recent
years, ethologists working with non-
human primates have clearly estab-
lished four distinct fear responses that
proceed sequentially in response to in-
creasing threat. The order of these re-
sponses may have important implica-
tions for understanding and treating
acute stress in humans.
The sequence, originally described
by Jeffrey A. Gray,2 begins with what
ethologists call “the freeze response” or
“freezing,” terms corresponding to what
clinicians typically refer to as hypervi-
gilance (being on guard, watchful, or
hyper-alert). This initial freeze response
is the “stop, look, and listen” response
associated with fear. The survival ad-
vantage of this response is obvious. Spe-
cifically, ethological research has dem-
onstrated that prey that remain “frozen”
during a threat are more likely to avoid
detection because the visual cortex and
the retina of mammalian carnivores pri-
marily detect moving objects rather than
color.3
After this initial freeze response,
the next response in the sequence is an
attempt to flee, and once this has been
exhausted, there is an attempt to fight—
in that order. Thus, “flight or fight” is
the proper order of responses rather
than “fight or flight.” This reversal of
order may have nontrivial clinical im-
plications that become clear once one
examines the conflicting demands of
biological and social imperatives often
present in life-threatening situations.
Overcoming the biological predisposi-
tion to act one way when sociocultural
norms demand another type of action
complicates an already overwhelming
scenario.
To illustrate, consider a military
combat situation. When a soldier en-
counters an initial sign of threat, the so-
cially appropriate response, i.e., the re-
sponse demanded by his military
training and reinforced by other mem-
bers of his unit, is usually the “stop,
watch, and listen” heightened-alertness
response. This behavior is consistent
with the biological predisposition to-
ward the first part of the sequence: the
freeze response. As the reality of a fire-
fight grows imminent, however, the
biological and situational demands are
no longer in concert. The evolved hard-
wired instinctual response to flee is in
conflict with his/her military training.
This conflict is bound to further in-
crease the intensity of this already
stressful experience. It is a conflict that
is hidden, however, by the misconcep-
tion that a human’s first instinct is to
fight.
In addition to the omission of the
initial freezing response, other impor-
tant fear responses have remained ob-
scured, in part because of their omis-
sion from “fight or flight,” and these
other fear responses have important
clinical implications as well. The next
step in the sequence of fear-circuitry re-
sponses after fighting is tonic immobil-
ity. This response occurs during direct
physical contact with the carnivore (or
the human predator). Tonic immobility
was referred to as “playing dead” in the
early ethological literature and has been
referred to as peritraumatic “panic-like”
symptoms in the posttraumatic stress
disorder literature.4 We prefer a term
widely used in Europe: “fright.” The
corresponding French term is “effroi.”5
“Fright” is also the English word that
best captures the Kraepelinean (and
modern German) concept of “Schreck”
as in “Schrekneurosen.”4–6 Furthermore,
the ethological term “freeze” discussed
closely resembles the meaning of
“freeze” in military and police parlance.
Unfortunately, in child psychol-
ogy, “fright” (tonic immobility) has
Letters
Psychosomatics 45:5, September-October 2004 449
also been referred to as “freezing.” This
has created much confusion. The tonic
immobility (fright) response is pan-
mammalian. Tonic immobility is most
useful when a slow-moving vulnerable
organism (e.g., the opossum) is con-
fronted with a life-threatening situation
involving mobile, large predators.3,7
Tonic immobility may enhance sur-
vival when a predator temporarily loos-
ens its grip on captured prey under the
assumption that it is indeed dead, pro-
viding the prey with an opportunity for
escape. It is also a response that may
be adaptive in humans when there is no
possibility of escaping or winning a
fight.7
The clinical relevance of tonic im-
mobility as a survival response may be
illustrated best in relation to the behav-
ior of some victims of violence or sex-
ual assault who exhibit extreme passiv-
ity during the assault. Here again, an
understanding of the hard-wired nature
of the response might help ameliorate
one dimension of the painful memories
that plague some victims who wonder
why they did not put up more of a fight.
We propose the adoption of the ex-
panded and reordered phrase “freeze,
flight, fight, or fright” as a more com-
plete and nuanced alternative to “fight
or flight.” While we cannot hope to
compete with the legacy of Cannon’s
phrase in the culture at large, adoption
of this alternative term within the clini-
cal community may help keep clini-
cians aware of the relevant advances in
understanding of the human stress re-
sponse made since the original term
“fight or flight” was coined three-quar-
ters of a century ago.
H. Stefan Bracha, M.D.
Tyler C. Ralston, M.A.
Jennifer M. Matsukawa, M.A.
National Center for PTSD,
Department of Veterans Affairs,
Pacific Islands Health Care
System, Spark M. Matsunaga
Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii
Andrew E. Williams, M.A.
Department of Psychology,
University of Hawaii at Manoa,
Honolulu, Hawaii
Adam S. Bracha, B.A.
Biomedical-Research Consultant,
Honolulu, Hawaii
This material is based upon work
supported in part by the Office of
Research and Development, Medical
Research Service, Department of
Veterans Affairs, VA Pacific Islands
Health Care System, Spark M.
Matsunaga Medical Center. Support
was also provided by a National
Alliance for Research on
Schizophrenia and Depression
(NARSAD) Independent Investigator
Award and the VA National Center
for PTSD.
References
1. Cannon WB: Bodily Changes in Pain,
Hunger, Fear and Rage: An Account of
Recent Research Into the Function of
Emotional Excitement, 2nd ed. New York,
Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1929
2. Gray JA: The Psychology of Fear and
Stress, 2nd ed. Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1988
3. Nesse RM: Proximate and evolutionary
studies of anxiety, stress and depression:
synergy at the interface. Neurosci
Biobehav Rev 1999; 23:895–903
4. Bracha HS, Williams AE, Haynes SN,
Kubany ES, Ralston TC, Yamashita JM:
The STRS (shortness of breath,
tremulousness, racing heart, and sweating):
a brief checklist for acute distress with
panic-like autonomic indicators;
development and factor structure. Ann
Gen Hosp Psychiatry 2004 (http://
www.general-hospital-psychiatry.com/
content/3/1/8)
5. Vaiva G, Ducrocq F, Jezequel K, Averland
B, Lestavel P, Brunet A, Marmar CR:
Immediate treatment with propranolol
decreases posttraumatic stress disorder two
months after trauma. Biol Psychiatry
2003; 54:947–949
6. Kraepelin E: Die schreckneurosen, in Ein
lehrbuch fur studieren und aertze, vol II.
Edited by Barth JA. Leipzig, 1899
7. Perry BD, Pollard RA, Blakley TL, Baker
WL, Vigilante D: Childhood trauma, the
neurobiology of adaptation, and “use-
dependent” development of the brain:
How “states” become “traits.” Infant Ment
Health J 1995; 16:271–291
Hypertensive Urgency With
Clonidine and Mirtazepine
TO THE EDITOR: We report a case of
hypertensive urgency in a patient main-
tained with clonidine and mirtazepine
prescribed concurrently. This interac-
tion has been previously reported in the
medical literature as “hypertensive ur-
gency”.1 To our knowledge, this is the
first such report in the psychiatric lit-
erature and would benefit colleagues
who practice psychopharmacology and
need to be aware of this potential in-
teraction, which can result in serious
life-threatening hypertensive urgency.2
Case Report
Mr. A was a 53-year-old man with a
history of major depressive disorder,
posttraumatic stress disorder, alcohol
dependence, hepatitis C, and hyperten-
sion. He was admitted to an inpatient
psychiatry unit for alcohol detoxifica-
tion. He was placed on a temazepam
taper: day 1, 30 mg of oral temazepam
every 6 hours; day 2, 30 mg every 8
hours; day 3, 30 mg every 12 hours;
day 4, 30 mg/day; and then discontin-
uation. The taper was completed over
4 days with an uneventful detoxifica-
tion.
On admission, Mr. A’s antihyper-
tensive medications were 0.1 mg of
clonidine every 8 hours, 40 mg b.i.d. of
lisinopril, 50 mg b.i.d. of metropolol,
and a clonidine patch of 0.3 mg every
8 hours.
For the treatment of depression,
Mr. A was given mirtazepine, 30 mg/
day, on hospital day 1. On hospital day
4, his dose was increased to 45 mg/day,
and the 45-mg dose was given at 9:01
p.m. Later that night, at 11:33 p.m., Mr.
A’s blood pressure increased to 250/
130 mm Hg. He was asymptomatic and
was taken to the emergency room,
where he received two doses of intra-


Does "Fight or Flight" Need Updating?

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