9 Months To Birth Your Play

Welcome to Workshop 5 on what happens when threat overwhelms the nervous system. In this workshop we will be building on workshop 4’s exploration of what happens when our three basic psychological needs are threatened or thwarted. We will be looking at an extract from a Bruntwood Prize winning play to identify how the characters express needs, needs under threat and overwhelm. 

In our last workshop we discovered that threat to our needs can trigger areas of the subcortical brain, particularly the amygdala which is like an alarm system for danger. Humans evolved in hostile, wild environments with dangers at every turn. Those who reacted rapidly to perceived threats survived long enough to pass on their genes. The reflex that enabled this response is still very active in our brains and central nervous systems. It is the flight and fight response that enables us to fight or escape the threat. Danger signals in the subcortical brain trigger the fight or flight response by getting the sympathetic nervous system to put the body effectively at battle stations. During times of stress the brain sends signals in the form of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, to activate our sympathetic nervous system. This results in things like our pupils being dilated, our heart rate increasing and non essential items like digestion being slowed down or stopped. 

As well as fighting or fleeing, our brains evolved to help us survive by shutting down and freezing in esponse to threats. This involves the nervous system causing bodily changes such as decreased heart rate. Like animals playing dead, the body closes down and feigns death as a survival strategy. 

Now I’d like you to bring to mind the three feelings systems that are evoked when our needs are threatened or thwarted; rage, fear and grief. Note down which of them you think might be activated most when our nervous system is in overwhelm states of fight, flight or freeze. 

What did you think? The three behaviours can be activated by all three of the feelings but as we explored last time with the iceberg metaphor, this can often fall into a hierarchy. First of all, when an obstacle gets in the way of what we need and want, this can evoke the rage system. And when these feelings overwhelm our nervous system this can be expressed in fight behaviours.  

When our needs, particularly for competence and mastery are threatened or thwarted, this can evoke the fear system. When these feelings overwhelm our nervous system, this can be expressed in flight behaviours.  

And when our needs, particularly for connectedness are threatened or thwarted, this can evoke the grief system. When these feelings overwhelm the nervous system this can be expressed in freeze behaviours.  

Now take a few minutes to think about when you or someone close to you have become overwhelmed and have displayed fight, flight and freeze behaviours. Write down as many examples of each that you can think of. 

Here are some examples: 

Fight:  

Aggressive, threatening, kicking, hitting, spitting, shouting, screaming, headbutting, pinching, pushing, hair pulling, swearing, argumentative, confrontational, slamming doors, banging things, throwing things, punching, crying, ripping, breaking things, biting, exploding, disrespectful, disregarding of others, pushing people away, oppositional, argumentative, controlling, demanding, inflexible, hot and bothered, easily distracted, can’t follow rules, blaming. 

Flight 

Running away, bolting, disappearing, hiding, super busy, need to get where you’re going first, acting like a baby, baby voice, restlessness, hyperactive, manic, chaotic, silly voices, loud, disruptive, clumsy, bumping into people, aggressive, threatening, easily distracted. 

Freeze 

Bored, not interested, not listening, day dreaming, staring into space, confused, forgetful, withdrawn, quiet, hard to reach, emotionless, inactive, unproductive, and unable to learn, relate or engage, numb, dead inside, feel nothing, zone out, feel empty, can’t connect, can’t think, reduced appetite, shake, sweat, hyper vigilant, subject change, talking about something else, easily bullied, quiet and passive, not questioning or asking questions, never drawing unnecessary attention, doing just enough to avoid being noticed. 

Neurodiversity, trauma and societal systems 

It’s important to be aware that neurodiversity, and experiences of societal systems and environments can all affect how our nervous systems respond to overwhelm resulting from demands outweighing resources. This can mean that fight, flight and freeze behaviours are displayed more frequently and/or more extremely. 

Nervous system overwhelm for characters in a Bruntwood Prize Winning Play 

We’re now going to look at nervous system overwhelm for characters in playwriting through reading an extract from a Bruntwood Prize winning play, Yen by Anna Jordan. As you read it, try to notice three things: 

1. When Hench in the rage, fear or grief systems. 

1. When Hench and to a lesser extent Jennifer’s nervous systems appear to become overwhelmed and they display fight, flight or freeze behaviours. 

1. When Hench’s needs for certainty, autonomy, competence and relatedness are threatened or thwarted. 

 

Slide 23: Scene Two     

Very early the next morning. They lie in bed together, asleep, Hench spooning Jennifer. Hench    starts to murmur in his sleep, and toss and turn a little. 

    

 Hench:    No.  NO.  (Beat. Stirs a little more) Stop it. No. Don’t!     

    

Jennifer awakes, takes a moment to take everything in.     

    

Jennifer:   Hench? Hench?        

    

Hench:    What is it?     

Jennifer:   Hench wake up.           

Hench: Is it mum?        

Jennifer: No no it’s…     

She kneels up, covering herself a little.        

I’m wet.           

Hench: What?     

Hench sits up in bed.        

Slide 24: Jennifer: I’m soaking wet.     

Beat     

Jennifer: I think…I think you wet the bed. 

Hench: No. No I didn’t.        

Jennifer: I think you must have.        

Hench sits on the side of the bed motionless for a moment trying to get to grips with the situation.  

Hench?  It’s OK it’s really not a big thing. Don’t be embarrassed, it’s only me. 

Slide 25: Hench screws his eyes up tight.     

Say something.     

Hench: Be quiet. 

Jennifer:  What?       

Hench:    Stop talking.     

Jennifer:   Paul?     

Hench screws his eyes up tighter. She moves towards him. She touches his shoulder. 

Hench:    Don’t touch me.        

Hench turns away quickly and walks towards the other room. 

Jennifer:  It’s OK.     

Hench: (Getting aggravated)/ Don’t be stupid Jennifer, as if I’m gonna wet the bed. What do you take me for? Some baby? 

Jennifer:  OK, I’m sorry.      

Hench:  /AS IF! As if I’d wet the bed.     

Jennifer puts on her T-shirt quickly.     

Jennifer:   Let’s forget about it. 

Slide 26: Hench:    Leave me alone.     

He turns to her for the first time. She sees the front of his trousers are wet.  He spins back around.     

Jennifer:  Please talk to me.     

Hench:    NO.     

Jennifer:   It really doesn’t matter.        

Hench:    Shut up. (He puts his hands over his ears) STOP SPEAKING.        

Hench pulls on a T-shirt, keeps his back to Jennifer, inside he is shaking.   

Jennifer:     Why are you being like this? There’s no need to be/embarrassed       

Hench:    /Jus get out.           

Jennifer:     What?? Hench no! It doesn’t matter it’s not a big thing. 

Hench:   /GO!        

Slide 27: Jennifer:     What about our coach? What about the bore? 

Hench:    nah na all that!     

Jennifer:    Hench, I don’t want to go without you.    

Hench:   /I don’t wanna go. I don’t wanna go anywhere with you. 

Jennifer:    (Starts to cry) Please stop being so horrible to me.  

Hench:   Get out.     

Jennifer cries     

OUT.           

He picks up her bag and throws it out of the door. She doesn’t move. 

GET OUT YOUFREAK!          

Jennifer runs out. She slams the front door. Taliban starts to go crazy. Hench starts to breathe heavily. In a fury he leaves the room. Taliban’s barking gets louder and louder. The sound of effort from Hench – kicking. Hench intermittently cries shouts and swears as he kicks the dog. After some time Taliban stops making noise. Silence descends. Lights fade. 

How did you find that? What did you notice? 

Different interpretations are possible but potential ways of interpreting Hench and Jennifer’s feelings and overwhelm in response to threatened and thwarted needs are as follows: 

At the beginning of the scene Hench seems to be having a dream in which he feels threatened. He seems to be seeking connection with his mum which earlier in the play we find has been difficult and disrupted. When Jennifer wakes him up and says he’s wet the bed, Hench is threatened and overwhelmed by the realisation that he’s done this. He defends himself against the threat of distressing feelings through denial. At first he freezes momentarily from the shock, sitting on the bed motionless. Then his rage system starts to activate, telling Jennifer to stop talking and to not touch him.  

Hench’s need for autonomous self-regulation has been thwarted by wetting himself and literally not being able to regulate his bladder.  His need for competence has been thwarted by probable feelings of incompetence and failure at wetting himself. He also displays feelings in the fear system and flight behaviours by turning away quickly and walking towards the other room.  

Jennifer trying to repair the connection between them is met with rage and fight behaviours from Hench. He gets ‘aggravated’ and lashes out at the idea that someone would wet themselves, defending himself by projecting the feeling and behaviour onto others.  

Hench then goes into both fight and flight mode, telling Jennifer to leave him alone and spinning around when she sees the front of his trousers are wet. He refuses to talk to her, tells her to shut up and blocks his ears, telling her to stop speaking. He turns his back on her and his fear system is evident in that ‘inside he is shaking’.  

The overwhelm seems to build and his fight system is evoked by growing rage. He severs the connection with Jennifer, throwing her bag out and shouting, projecting his feelings of potential self-hatred onto her. 

Jennifer responds with grief by crying. Then in response to the overwhelm of rage and threat from Hench, she freezes and then runs. At the separation from Jennifer, Hench appears to become overwhelmed by distress and displays rage fuelled fight behaviours. He breathes heavily in a fury and kicks the dog while he shouts and swears.  

Hench also cries, and this, along with severing the connection with Jennifer suggests that at root underlyingly he feels the panic of separation distress and the grief system. This is evoked by his needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness all being threatened and thwarted. He likely feels intense shame, even if subconsciously, resulting from this and acts this out in rage and grief at the overwhelming feelings of helplessness and vulnerability at the threat of losing Jennifer and ultimately the threat to the certainty of his own survival and thrival. This may also be underlined by separation distress in relation to his mum as his main caregiver. 

Stress bucket activity 

Having explored nervous system overwhelm for characters, we’re now going to explore nervous system overwhelm for yourselves as playwrights and what can help with this.  

One really helpful metaphor for envisaging stress and overwhelm is the stress bucket. Imagine that your resources and capacity to cope are like a bucket. The demands on you, those everyday things, big and small that challenge you, are like a stream of water from the tap. 

This bucket has a valve in the bottom of it, so even though there is water going into it, there is also water being syphoned out. This means that the bucket never gets filled up and never overflows. 

Overwhelm and fight, flight, freeze behaviours can happen when the water coming into the bucket (the demands) is coming in fast, and the release valve isn’t working well or is maybe blocked and can’t always be used. Eventually the bucket overflows. The point at which the bucket overflows is the point at which the nervous system becomes overwhelmed by the pressure of feelings of rage, fear or grief and you feel uncertain of your survival and thrival. 

There are two ways to stop the water from overflowing: 

1. Get a bigger bucket (increase your resources) Examples of this are things like money, time, support from friends, or self care practices. 

1. Reduce the flow of water in the bucket by either using the release valve or reducing the flow or water from the tap (reduce the demands on you). Examples of using the release valve are talking to a therapist about your emotions or going for a run. Examples of reducing the flow of water from the tap are setting boundaries around what you agree to do or letting go of perfectionism. 

Now have a go at completing a stress bucket for yourself in relation to your playwriting. 

Draw a stress bucket diagram like the one on the slide. Next to the flow of water from the tap, jot down any current demands in relation to playwriting that either feel overwhelming or are on the way to feeling overwhelming. These are the water from the tap. 

Then inside the bucket, jot down any resources in relation to playwriting that are currently giving you a bigger bucket or that could give you a bigger bucket in the future.  

Finally next to the release valve and at the side of the tap jot down any ways you currently release the valve on the bucket or reduce the flow from the tap by reducing the demands on you in relation to your playwriting. This could include anything you would like to do to reduce demands in the future. 

I hope you found that exercise useful. It’s something you can go back to and review to check in on your demands and resources, how your efforts to balance these are going and ways in which this is working to reduce overwhelm. 

To recap, in this workshop we’ve explored what happens when our nervous systems are overwhelmed by threat, fight, flight, freeze behaviours and how these relate to the feeling systems of rage, fear and grief. We’ve explored nervous system overwhelm for characters in a Bruntwood Prize Winning play and for you as playwrights through a stress bucket activity. In our next workshop we’ll be looking at defence mechanisms with a focus on splitting and what that looks like in playwriting. We’ll also be learning the skills of the middle ground and distress tolerance. 

If you can, before then, try continuing to notice when you or your character’s nervous systems are overwhelmed and what that looks like in terms of behaviours. Also try reviewing and adding to your stress bucket diagram. 

About Anna Webster…

Anna is a Coaching Psychologist, Wellbeing Coach and Psychotherapist in Training. She specialises in coaching psychology workshops and 1:1 programmes informed by emotion neuroscience, neuropsychoanalysis, and dialectical behaviour therapy.

Anna works for The University of Salford on SPECIFiC; a 7-session therapeutic psychoeducation coaching programme on the neurodevelopmental condition FASD, the first of its kind in the UK. She co-wrote the manual, co-delivers the programme and leads on Public Involvement. She was a member of the Steering Group on the UK’s first FASD prevalence study and was consulted as an expert by experience for the NICE Guidelines on FASD. She is also a Health and Wellbeing Coach for the NHS.