The Part of Therapy No One Explains—and Why You Keep Baking a Cake When You Need a Sandwich

Therapy has two parts - but our culture usually only talks about one of them.

The Consumer Part

The first is the consumer part. A person has a problem, seeks help, and wants relief. This part fits easily into medical and business models - diagnose, treat, improve. It’s familiar, structured, and culturally comfortable. This is the one we hear about.

The Relational Part

The second part is relational. And this is where therapy becomes harder to define—and harder to market. This is the one we don’t hear about.

Why Therapy Is Hard to Simplify

One reason therapy resists simple explanations is the sheer range of what shows up in the room. Therapy isn’t working with just one kind of problem. Even when someone feels a single symptom - like anxiety - that doesn’t mean the cause is singular or simple.

Good therapy is personalized. It works with personality patterns, attachment histories, developmental interruptions, single overwhelming events, repeated traumatizing experiences, and acute crises. Often, it’s working with several of these at once.

And they don’t exist in isolation.

Layered Problems, Not Either/Or

For example, developmental trauma can create a nervous system that is more vulnerable to being rocked by later events. This means a person can be impacted - or even traumatized - by experiences that might be merely stressful for someone else. Those later events often deepen the original coping patterns, creating a vicious cycle.

The work isn’t either/or. It’s layered.

Second-Hand vs First-Hand Knowledge

Most people are comfortable talking to their therapist about what happened between them and someone else outside the therapy room. That matters and is valuable - but it’s also second-hand knowledge. It’s memory filtered through time, interpretation, and self-protection.

Something different happens when people talk about what’s happening between them and the therapist. That’s first-hand knowledge. The reactions are live. The body responds. Old patterns don’t need to be reconstructed - they show up on their own.

This is why it can be valuable to name how the therapist is being experienced in the moment. Whether they seem bored, interested, distant, irritated, calming, perfect, or completely incompetent, those impressions often tell us less about accuracy and more about which old patterns are coming online. When they’re spoken out loud, they become something we can actually work with.

This isn’t being rude or oversharing. It’s allowing material that might feel culturally awkward to surface - material that, psychologically, is often where unconscious emotions and memories are trying to be seen and heard.

Why Old Patterns Feel So Real

Our brains are designed to keep us alive while using as little energy as possible. When we survive emotionally overwhelming moments - especially ones where fear, shame, anger, or grief couldn’t be fully expressed - the brain records what worked.

Not as a list of details from the event, but as a total recipe.

That recipe includes coping strategies, body responses, and beliefs about the self and others. Because it helped us survive, it gets coded as accurate and efficient. Later, when enough familiar ingredients show up in the present - tone of voice, closeness, authority, disappointment—the brain automatically pulls that recipe back online.

The problem is that memory doesn’t feel like memory.
It feels like now.

So we don’t realize we’re trying to bake a cake in a moment that actually calls for a sandwich. Both situations may include similar ingredients - salt and flour - but they require entirely different outcomes. The cake recipe once made sense. It kept us alive. But it was never meant to become permanent.

It was a survival solution that got stuck, leaving us less flexible when familiar ingredients appear again in the future.

Where Clinical Judgment Comes In

This is where therapy becomes more than technique.

Some incomplete self-protective responses are best worked through intrapersonally—with the therapist coaching from the outside as sensations, emotions, and impulses are noticed and allowed to complete.

Other patterns work best interpersonally—with a therapist who is both coaching and participating, a kind of player-coach.

The Therapist Is Part of the System

The therapist is not outside this process.

Imagine gently dipping your hand into the water along a riverbank. You’re not just observing the river—you’re interacting with it. The water is impacted by your hand and may react to that impact; it may get warmer or colder, or move faster or slower around your hand. That reaction holds information.

In therapy, the therapist’s internal responses matter in the same way. Feeling a sudden chill or warmth can signal a coded moment emerging. At the same time, a skilled therapist knows their own hands. They work to recognize what belongs to them and what belongs to the shared moment. This part, by human nature, is a little inefficient and messy.

However, this unavoidable interplay isn’t a flaw in therapy. It’s part of how therapy works.

Why Analog Holds Both Parts

There is no simple model that captures all of this. Medical, expert, and influencer models are easy to communicate - but they ignore the relational part. When that part is missing, disappointing outcomes collapse into blame: the clinician failed, or the client failed.

At Analog, we refuse to separate the two parts of therapy, even though holding them together is difficult and messy. We aim to be both player and coach - guiding the work while knowing we are part of it.

This is why integrating psychoanalytic therapy with Somatic Experiencing matters so much to us. One helps us understand patterns and meaning. The other helps the nervous system complete what was once interrupted—so old survival code can loosen and something more flexible can take its place.

It’s harder to explain.

And it’s why it works.

The Hidden Impact of Unresolved Fight, Flight, or Freeze Responses

When our natural threat response cycle is interrupted, it can easily be mistaken for other issues. By understanding the threat response cycle that all mammals experience, we can gain better insight into our reactions and overall mental health.

What is the Threat Response Cycle?

Imagine you're out for a walk and you hear a twig snap, or you see an unexpected movement out of the corner of your eye. Maybe you’re at work and you get an alert for an impromptu meeting, etc. These instances kick off a process known as the threat response cycle:

1. Notice Something New: This could be any sudden change in your environment—sounds, smells, sights, or even digital notifications.

2. Orient to the Novelty: Your attention shifts to this new stimulus.

3. Assess for Danger: Instinctively and automatically, your brain evaluates whether this new thing poses a threat.

4. Activate Response: If it’s deemed dangerous (this is not a conscious decision), your body kicks into one of the three F’s: fight, flight, or freeze.

5. Return to Normal: If it’s not a threat (like realizing that "snake" is actually just a garden hose), your body relaxes, and you return to your normal state.

But what happens if your response to a threat gets interrupted? Say, you feel intense anger but can't express it, or you're scared but can’t escape. If your fight, flight, or freeze response isn’t completed, that energy gets stuck in your system.

Why Does This Matter?

Unresolved fight, flight, or freeze responses can cause various issues. They might be mistaken for problems with self-control, personality flaws, or even physical ailments. For instance, feeling inexplicably anxious or irritable could be the result of a stuck fight or flight response, not a personal failing.

Understanding this cycle is crucial for mental health. It helps us recognize that these reactions are natural and part of our biology. Completing these responses, even if it's after the fact through therapeutic practices, can help us return to a state of balance. Somatic Experiencing is an effective way to do this.

Final Thoughts

Recognizing and addressing stuck fight, flight, or freeze responses is essential for mental and physical well-being. By understanding this natural cycle, we can better navigate our reactions to stress and create more room for healing and growth. If you think unresolved responses might be affecting you, talking to a counselor can be a great step toward resolving these issues and finding peace.

Shifting perspectives: understanding your mental health through a biological lens

Your perspective on emotional well-being significantly shapes your actual emotional health. For instance, labeling your condition as "I have depression" may lead you to view your emotional struggles through the lens of disease. This common but oversimplified understanding of mental health, including depression, can hinder effective coping and healing by suggesting that these issues arise in isolation, akin to catching a disease or inheriting it without context. This viewpoint may inadvertently foster feelings of helplessness by stripping the experience of depression of any meaning or reason.

However, a deeper appreciation of how our bodies and nervous systems interact with emotions, thoughts, and behaviors can profoundly alter our self-perception and emotional health. Consider the well-known nervous system responses: fight, flight, or freeze. These automatic reactions to perceived threats impact our physiology and psychology in complex ways, altering everything from blood flow and organ function to thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Take the "freeze" response as an example. This reaction, characterized by a metabolic slowdown, is often accompanied by fear, helplessness, detachment, and a reduced capacity for action—symptoms that closely resemble depression. When the freeze response is interrupted and fails to resolve, it can manifest as depressive symptoms, which, though they may seem unrelated to any specific event, actually stem from an incomplete biological reaction to perceived danger. Recognizing these connections can illuminate the meaningful origins of our emotional experiences, offering new paths for understanding and addressing our mental health.

Rethinking Mental Health: Beyond Symptoms and Illness

Mental health is often framed within a medical model, where symptoms indicate an underlying "illness" to be treated. This approach, though logical for physical ailments, falls short in comprehensively addressing mental health, particularly when considering the impact of trauma.

Trauma, whether emotional or physical, can leave a lasting imprint on our nervous system. Unlike the straightforward treatment of a physical injury, emotional trauma involves complex reactions of fight, flight, or freeze that may become "stuck" in our bodies and memories. These reactions, along with associated feelings of helplessness and deep-seated beliefs about ourselves, become our automatic response to future stress, replaying old patterns of behavior that were once survival strategies.

Viewing these responses as mere symptoms misses the broader context. They are, instead, echoes of past experiences, not indicative of an organic disease but of a memory playing out its survival tactics. This perspective is particularly relevant for understanding conditions like developmental trauma, which stems from accumulated emotional wounds, and shock trauma, triggered by acute incidents.

While more complex mental health conditions like Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia present additional challenges, considering the role of memory and trauma may offer deeper insights into their nature, beyond genetic predispositions.

Shifting our view from a binary of "healthy" vs. "unhealthy" to one of adaptiveness allows us to see mental health as a narrative of coping and survival, tailored to the individual's context and time. This approach recognizes the uniqueness of each person's journey, emphasizing adaptiveness—not in terms of objective correctness but as a reflection of the individual's best efforts to cope within their specific circumstances.

From Conflict to Clarity: Uncovering and Transforming Insecure Beliefs with Mindful Awareness

It can be challenging to recognize the insecurities and self-doubts that surface during moments of conflict. These underlying beliefs often remain unnoticed, yet they trigger our body's fight, flight, or freeze response. Gaining awareness of these beliefs is akin to discovering who is behind the wheel, driving our reactions. This awareness opens up the possibility to move away from instinctual survival tactics, rooted in fight, flight or freeze that may not be truly adaptive, allowing us to make choices that are more mindful, socially constructive, and genuinely beneficial.

Our self-perceptions (which are contextual and automatic - not choice based, they just happen and are based in past experiences) are frequently mirrored in our views of others. For instance, thinking of oneself as "weak, small, and helpless" while perceiving others as "powerful, uncaring, and threatening" can lead to a heightened sense of vulnerability and activate those defensive survival responses.

However, reacting in this way often exacerbates the conflict rather than resolving it. The question then becomes, how can we pause, become aware, and realign ourselves? There are numerous techniques to help us become present. One approach I find particularly effective is called "Orienting," a concept from Somatic Experiencing. For a deeper understanding, I recommend watching the video below.

The Triad of Change: Memory, Completion, and Mindfulness in Mental Health

Achieving profound and lasting change in our mental health and emotional well-being requires addressing three fundamental elements: memory, the completion of initiated responses, and mindfulness. These components serve as the cornerstone for transforming our automatic emotional and behavioral patterns and paving the way for new beginnings.

• Memory: Our memories, both short-term and long-term, play a pivotal role in shaping our perceptions and responses to various situations. Long-term memories form the basis of our predictive models, guiding our behaviors and emotions based on past experiences. When we encounter familiar situations, often unconsciously, we default to automatic mode, relying on learned coping mechanisms to navigate through challenges.

However, the problem arises when these coping mechanisms are rooted in survival rather than true resolution. For instance, if as children, we learned to cope with unmet needs by numbing our emotions or shutting down, these patterns can persist into adulthood. Despite having greater agency as adults, our automatic responses remain stuck in survival mode, leading to feelings of panic, clinginess, rage, or withdrawal when triggered by similar situations.

To instigate real change, we must address these ingrained memories and disrupt the automated responses they trigger. This involves discharging emotional distress associated with past experiences and creating space for new adaptive strategies to emerge.

• Completion of Initiated Responses: Many times, when faced with threatening situations, our bodies initiate fight, flight, or freeze responses as a means of self-protection. However, if these responses are not completed, they can linger within us, manifesting as chronic stress or unresolved tension.

Completing these initiated responses involves allowing our bodies to release the stored energy from past traumas, thereby freeing ourselves from the grip of unresolved stress. Through somatic practices and therapeutic interventions, we can facilitate the discharge of pent-up emotional energy and restore a sense of balance and resilience.

• Mindfulness: Mindfulness serves as the bridge between past experiences and present awareness, offering us the opportunity to observe our thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations without judgment. By cultivating mindfulness, we can develop greater self-awareness and discernment, allowing us to recognize and interrupt automatic patterns of behavior.

Rather than simply reacting to stimuli based on past conditioning, mindfulness empowers us to respond consciously and compassionately to the present moment. It opens the door to new possibilities, enabling us to break free from the constraints of past memories and embrace fresh perspectives on our lives.

In conclusion, while there may be countless tools and techniques for enhancing emotional intelligence and behavioral regulation, true transformation begins by addressing the core issues of memory, completion, and mindfulness. By delving into the depths of our past experiences, releasing unresolved tensions, and cultivating present-moment awareness, we can embark on a journey of profound healing and growth. Let us embrace the power of change and embark on the path towards greater well-being and fulfillment.

What is trauma?

“Trauma is incomplete self-protective responses waiting to be completed.”

Dr. Peter Levine

Dr. Peter Levine created Somatic Experiencing (c) but what does he mean by “Trauma is incomplete self-protective responses waiting to be completed”? Think of it this way:

• A threatening moment (could be emotional overwhelm or an outside threat to our safety) causes an automatic reaction towards trying to keep you alive. We usually think of these as fight, flight or freeze.

• These are are meant to “complete”. Meaning they are meant to cause us to feel certain emotions & take certain actions until we register that the overwhelm or threat is gone or done.

• When we don’t allow our system to complete* those fight/flight/freeze reactions get stuck in our systems and cause problems (like depression/anxiety/and more)

• Somatic Experiencing therapy can help the body safely complete these cycles and let go of the enormous amount of energy that is being used by the stuck fight/flight/freeze attempts and bring order back to your nervous system.

*Reasons we don’t allow our systems to complete fight/flight/freeze are numerous. For example, we might be in a car accident or something else extreme and there’s not enough time to move our bodies to protect ourselves like we want to (I fell off a tall ramp skateboarding at 39 broke my elbow and had this experience) , emotionally we might feel a murderous rage in reaction to a co-worker or a boss but we can’t act on that so we squash it and dissociate from our rage because we don’t know how to handle it without feeling out of control. Another emotional example is we receive heartbreaking news but are in public or with our young kids and don’t feel we can truly cry and grieve in that situation so we squash it and dissociate from the grief and the pain. A final example is as children we may not have felt safe to express our fear to our parents or teachers or peers and we learned to squash it and dissociate from it.