Reactivity: The What

So, most people think of reactivity as yelling or some other angry expression. But, it is SO much more than that! In fact, it is often subtle to the point where you may not even realize you are reacting at all. That's because most people don't think about behavior in terms of shame.

The first thing to know about shame is that it works in the shadows and in plain sight. It is this paradox that often makes it so confusing and difficult to identify. In terms of affect theory, shame is the abrupt cessation or sudden absence of positive affect (enjoyment/joy, interest/excitement). It is, by nature, hard to know what's happening when it is "shaming."

It is very helpful to view behavior in terms of Donald Nathanson's Compass of Shame (from his book Shame and Pride), wherein he outlines four points of reactivity:

- Attack Other (aka "fight"): "turning the tables", lashing out verbally or physically, establishing self as powerful or competent while diminishing other, sadism
- Attack Self (aka "flight"): demeaning/belittling self while establishing other as powerful and valued, self-criticism and put-down, masochism
- Avoidance (aka "flight"): denial, passive-aggressive attack other, abusing drugs/alcohol, addictive/habitual behaviors, distraction through thrill-seeking, over-doing, over-striving, machismo, running and hiding
- Withdrawal (aka "freeze"/"flag"/"faint"): isolating oneself, shrinking, classic shame response (slumped shoulders, depressed, humiliated)

When you see a behavior in one of these quadrants, you can bet that it is probably a reaction to a perceived threat trigger! Awareness of this alone will set you on a different path, one of exploration and understanding. I will go into detail of how to identify these points in a later post.

Experience of Reactivity

Here's a way of thinking about the flow of reactivity:
Threat Trigger ----> Pre-, Sub-, or Unconscious Experience ----> Shame Reaction

We can break this down a little further:
--> Threat Trigger (neutral/lacking specific meaning)
     --> Implicit association w/ "Titanic" memory: gives trigger meaning: trauma/death (threat)
           --> Re-experience attachment trauma: past shame/physical pain (attack)*
                 --> Expectation of additional trauma: future shame/physical pain (attack)*
                       --> Self-worth schema: current shame/sense-making, emotions 
                               dangerous/not allowed, "happening b/c I am unworthy" (attack)
                             --> Increased likelihood of death (threat)
                                  --> Anxiety
                                       --> Reaction: "Perfection" --> Expedition/Salvage Mission; 
                                               Flight/Fight/Freeze (strategy)

*Note: we experience the attack of dying (and threat of death) when we remember trauma and feel/expect shame or physical pain -- direct and overwhelming threat and attack. Most if not all of this happens unconsciously.

The difference between this dying and the normal, moment-to-moment dying inherent to existence is that this dying suddenly exceeds a sort of tipping point of critical mass whereby mostly unconscious death cues exceed life cues. In the latter, life cues exceed death cues.

Reaction often occurs very quickly, sometimes within milliseconds. In our conscious experience, we may just see the trigger and reaction -- we are not fully aware of the feelings, thoughts, memories, and body sensations we experience. Nor are we aware of the function the trigger and reaction serve: to keep feeling out of conscious awareness. 

Often we will react (even if just reactive thoughts or impulses) because that is how our brains and bodies are wired. But, even after a reaction we can work with it and dramatically reduce the time it takes to recover our "upstairs" thinking brain and repair the relationship we may have just ruptured. This involves the absolutely essential practices of (self-) compassion and mindfulness, among others. Other aspects of Response include:

• Recognize expectation that past trauma WILL repeat in future
• Recognize thinking we have same agency to meet needs as we did as infants/children
• Recognize expectation that unmet past needs can be met in present
• Recognize perceived threat may be from the past
• Recognize there may be no real threat of death in present
• Recognize True Self and lost life are already gone forever

More in future posts. Hopefully, this gives you the basics of the different forms of relational reactivity and a framework for thinking about it.