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The Slow Work of Feeling Suppressed Emotions

by Counseling and Wellness Center of PittsburghJuly 10, 2025 disassociate, disassociation, dorsal vagal shutdown, emotional numbness, fight flight freeze, flight or fight, freeze, freeze response, hyperarousal, hypoarousal, nervous system regulation, Parasympathetic nervous system, pendulation, peter levine, shutdown, somatic experiencing, somatic therapy, stress responses, suppressed emotions, sympathetic nervous system, titration, window of tolerance0 comments
The Slow Work of Feeling Suppressed Emotions Working with emotions—especially when they’ve been buried, shut down, or hard to name—reminds me a lot of orthodontics. It’s not fast. It’s not flashy. But it’s real. You can’t force a tooth into place without risking damage. And you can’t force suppressed emotions into awareness without overwhelming the system....
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The Fight Response on the Road AKA Road Rage

by Counseling and Wellness Center of PittsburghApril 24, 2023 fight flight freeze, fight response, flight or fight, freeze response, nervous system, nervous system regulation, road rage, stress responses, sympathetic nervous system0 comments
Welcome back to our stress responses series; what they are and how they manifest in different contexts. So far, we’ve explored the different stages of the freeze response: Freeze in a survival scenario and Freeze during social threats, and in our last blog, you survived the ultimate cage fight with Michael Myers (you’ll have to go back and read that one if you are wondering how you...
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Understanding the Freeze Response During Social “Threats”

by Counseling and Wellness Center of PittsburghApril 12, 2023 fight flight freeze, flight or fight, freeze response, nervous system, nervous system regulation, Parasympathetic nervous system, stress, stress responses, sympathetic nervous system0 comments
In our last blog, Stress Responses: What Are They, How Do They Work, and Why I am so Confused!?, you survived a vicious bear attack and learned how the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in when other responses fail. We explored different stages of the freeze response, and how to recognize them. You also learned some pretty cool new words, like neuroception and ventral vagal,...
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