Fight, Flight, and Other Responses to Stress

After years of counseling families, the therapist Murray Bowen concluded that there are just a handful of ways that people handle increased tension. We fight or we flee. We over-function or we under-function. Or we project our anxiety on one member of the family, often a child. Often these responses are automatic and not well thought out.

You have probably seen all these techniques at work at one time or another, either in yourself or in a family member. Perhaps you get irritable when you’re stressed out or even pick fights! Or maybe you manage your stress and the family’s stress by walking on eggshells at home or not calling far off relatives. That’s the fight or flight response.

Do you abuse alcohol, prescription drugs, or street drugs to take the edge off? Or are you the one who cleans up after the substance abuser in your family? That’s over and under functioning, respectively, and each needs the other to either misbehave or to satisfy a need for self-sacrifice.

Is there a problem child in your family? Or were you the problem child? Sometimes the problem child acts out because, ironically, the parent or parents are overly focused on the child’s well-being, to the detriment of their own well-being.

The Bible abounds with these types of behaviors. Anxious that his sacrifice didn’t please the Lord while his brother’s sacrifice did, Cain killed his brother Abel. That’s the fight response. The disciple who “hides his/her light under a bushel” to avoid disapproval exemplifies the flight response to anxiety. King David’s refusal to punish his son Amnon for sexually assaulting his daughter, Tamar, Amnon’s half-sister (2 Samuel 13:1–22) is classic under-functioning behavior. Martha, by contrast, was perhaps over-functioning when she complained to Jesus that her sister Mary wasn’t helping her in the kitchen (Luke 10:38–42). Joseph was made insufferable by his father’s doting, and the rest of the brothers reacted to their father’s favoritism by plotting to kill Joseph. Projection begat fighting.

Churches can behave like families. One anxious church might project its anxiety on a staff member who’s perceived to be underperforming, while another church will cope by fighting over hot-button issues.  

The Apostle Paul wrote, “Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” Before we celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Communion this Sunday, let’s engage in some self-examination. What are some of our favorite, automatic responses to worries and tension? What would it look like if we were more thoughtful and less reactive in times of increasing anxiety? And what would that look like in your family?