6 Defensive Behaviors That Show Up at Work—and How Psychological Safety Can Help

The language “fight, flight, or freeze” to describe the body’s instinctive survival responses to perceived threats is commonly understood. But some clinicians and researchers now recognize six distinct responses to threats: fight, flight, freeze, please/appease (sometimes called flattery), attach/cry for help, and collapse. Although our reactions to threats originate in our earliest experiences of safety and danger, they do not disappear as we grow up. These are deeply ingrained survival strategies – patterns that we unconsciously carry with us into adult life.