Mental Health and Cancer — The Fight, Flight or Freeze Response

Sarah Kelly, an Oncology Social Worker at Cancer Care, said that the shock of hearing you have cancer for the first time sets off a fight or flight or freeze response in a lot of people — freeze being an especially common reaction. Doctors tend to throw a lot of information at people when they tell them they have cancer, it can be really hard to sift through that information and pick out what’s important. Social workers are there to help with that feeling of being overwhelmed.

“Your mind can go completely blank,” Kelly said. “If we think of fight or flight or freeze, freeze is a big one that happens where people feel like ‘Oh my God, I have no idea what to do.’ We can help people figure that out.”