Based on my own understanding of this, there are three ways the body can mirror or reflect a 'freezing' reaction (such as, a block): *flight (escaping).. we've all experienced it.. we feel an anticipatory feeling in our throat or chest that stuttering will come, we need/attempt to avoid or escape this anticipation and we* ***freeze*** *on our own name (that one word that we cannot word-substitute), rather if we were resilient (e.g., mindfulness, or CBT) to this anticipatory sensation we wouldn't have to avoid it and this sensation wouldn't affect us anymore* *fawn (trying to please people or avoid conflict).. we've all experienced it.. we catastrophize speech errors. Then we feel the need to speak more perfectly, fluently or error-free (anticipatory struggle / approach-avoidance conflict) and this in itself results in a* ***freeze*** *reaction* *freeze (completely shutting down).. There are many freeze theories, see my* [*scientific table here*](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F0FzLXD8735NGjHlJfXriQYwiRyse1rpoRiJ67RDRww/edit?usp=sharing)*.* The polyvagal freeze theory appears to be the least compatible with neurodevelopmental childhood-onset stuttering. In contrast, I believe the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) freeze theory aligns much more closely with our stuttering. **Your thoughts?** Just so you know, even researchers and therapists have differents viewpoints on the matter. However, as people who stutter, we have our own unique perspective. What’s your take on it? Examples of various viewpoints: >*Secondary symptoms in stuttering might be related to the body’s fight (eg tension) -or-flight (eg word-substitution) response.* >*A silent block (that is, the breakdown in fluency) could be seen as a "flight" response, where the person subconsciously avoids speaking out of fear of being criticized or rejected.* >*A silent block might be linked to the "fawn" response, when someone tries to speak excessively perfect without trying to make disfluencies, to please others, hoping to gain approval or avoid conflict. The fawn response is a survival mechanism—it's a way people respond to stress by trying to please others to feel safe. For example, someone might work extra hard to make their speech execution sound more socially acceptable or sacrifice their own comfort to match other people’s preferences in conversation. The fawn response mirrors or reflects a freeze response. That is, out of the 3 (fight-flight-freeze), the fawn response is most closely related to the freeze response.* >*Freeze response: According to the polyvagal theory, the freeze response kicks in if the flight and fight response is of no use. Effects of the freeze response are: the heart stops beating, the whole body completely stops moving, and the person (or animal) appears to be dead, and the person may experience a near-death experience. In contrast, with silent blocks, normally the only thing that is frozen is the ability to say a specific sound or word, while they can usually say other sounds or words, and can still perform other actions. Generally, their heart is beating faster than normal, and they show increased levels of adrenaline, and therefore might not be considered a true freeze response. This is some food for thought* For more detailed info, see above scientific table in my Google Word document.