Dr Curtis Reisinger, a clinical psychologist at Zucker Hillside Hospital, told New York Magazine the 'fight or flight' response to stress is oversimplified, and that there are other ways that humans have evolved to adapt to stress. The six responses to stress include:
- 1. Fight: Fighting a threat
- 2. Flight: Fleeing a threat
- 3. Freeze: Freezing and not doing anything in response to a threat
- 4. Flooding: Being flooded with emotions in response to a threat
- 5. Fawn: Cooperating or submitting to one's threat or captor
- 6. Fatigue: Feeling tired and/or sleeping in response to a threat
As an example of how DENT works, Keith relates his experiences of working with traumatised individuals.
“DENT© is a coaching model that assumes that the Coachee or peer is healthy or, in DENT© terms, has ‘solidity. Over time, Emma and I have worked helping many people recover their ‘solidity’. In our experience the Human Givens (HG) model is our preferred and recommended approach to therapy.
I attended the training courses with the originators of HG, Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell, and remain an advocate, proponent and practitioner of their techniques. As I watched Joe and Ivan practice, I learned how to work with trauma (in DENT© terms, almost all lack of solidity can be attributed to stress and/or trauma of some kind, but that is not our current focus)”.
In this start, Keith has set the scene and introduced the story, his experience of learning trauma. He has also clearly communicated that DENT© is a coaching model, explained how DENT© sees a lack of solidity, and offered up a solution. That is his narrative.
Keith continues, “I learned a great deal from working with the victims of trauma, especially when the HG principles are extended into trauma informed care. In the process, I moved from an understanding that trauma responses were not just the Fight, Flight and Freeze that I had learned, but were wider. DENT© allows for us always to be testing our narrative and our meaning, seeing where it can be adapted and improved – what can be done differently and better!”
I noticed that some traumatised clients became people pleasers; some just wanted to sleep; and others were constantly in tears. I adapted my approach to clients accordingly. Following good DENT© principles, I adapted, by formulating hypotheses and potential solutions with my clients, which they could then test, with support, and refine if and when needed. They appreciated that. In what ways would you appreciate that?”
Keith has extended the story, adding into his narrative that he has learned something, and is sharing how DENT© is a developmental model, based on developing and testing hypotheses. He could go on to show that DENT© helps resolve the RED VUCA ‘U’ of uncertainty, and that can be found in this article https://thedentmodel.com/vuca/
Keith concludes, “Finally, I read the article ‘The six responses to stress’ and I had a ‘Wow’ or, as a good peer mentor of mine calls it, an ‘Aha’ moment. The article captured exactly what I was wanting to say, in fact, forgive the pun, it articulated it for me. I would really like to hear your experiences and how I can learn from your insights. What do you think, feel, or want to say?”
Keith’s story continues to unfold, but he starts to introduce other stories (his peer mentor, the reading of the article), and his narrative takes even further shape as he re-enforces that, in DENT©, it is ok to be struggling to make meaning and not yet understand, just as it is ok to take the efficient route, and adopt someone’s else’s definitions.
Keith also re-enforces the importance of learning, as a social exercise, as he invites the audience to participate. He illustrates how he uses peer mentors, both formally through his mentor, and informally through the article.
Two favourite sayings in DENT© are that, when we learn, ‘we stand on the shoulders of giants’ and that we should ‘keep it simple’.
