Update (18th September 2011): I’ve noticed that this post gets a regular number of visits from people doing web searches that feature ‘frozen face’ as a search term. If you have reached this post in this way, I would be interested in your reaction to what you read here, and how (if at all) it relates to the reasons for your search. E-mail me at: simon@silvercatpsychotherapy.co.uk
I was at a training event recently, and a colleague described someone who had trouble with their facial expression. They had a kind of set expression on their face that they found difficult to change deliberately. This was in relation to a discussion about the link between facial expression and emotional attunement, particularly in terms of empathy, and it reminded me of my own experiences of what I’ve tended to refer to as ‘frozen face syndrome’.
I’d like to put all that together here, and will start with a brief memory:
I’m sat with a very expressive friend, and she’s telling me about something that happened between her and someone else a couple of days previously. As she’s telling me, I’m listening intently and finding something strange. I realise that her eyes darting around as if scanning my face. Soon after that, she exclaims, ‘well respond then botox boy!’.
Sometimes, life has an interesting way of bringing things into my awareness. Previous to being named botox boy, I hadn’t been aware of my general lack of sensation in my face. As I reflected on this encounter, I became increasingly aware that my face felt numb and actually quite stiff, as if the muscles were literally frozen. I realised that I found it difficult to change my facial expression deliberately, and more, realised that I mostly wore a single, quite blank, expression on my face for most of the time.
I’ve already blogged about how I view emotion as the necessarily physical expression of inter- personal need. The place of facial expression within this is as the (wait for it, wait for it) interface between emotional systems; facial expression communicates emotional need and understanding. The discussion I mentioned above was about the part played by facial expression in attuning to and empathising with the emotional experience of another person.
In 1975, Tronick et al devised the still face experiment in which mother and infant interact normally for a while, before the mother presents a totally blank face. Baby tries to get its mother to respond with facial expressions but eventually grows anxious and distraught. The implication for attachment theory is that baby needs to be able to ‘read’ its caregiver’s facial expression in order to create a stable attachment.
More than that, facial expression communicates to someone else what’s going on within our own emotional system. To go back to that handy interfacing word, you could say that faces allow nervous systems to communicate with each other in quite a direct way about emotional sensation. And that’s an important aspect of empathy; being able to gauge the emotional sensations of another.
So what’s the deal with frozen face syndrome? Think Poker Face; the whole point is to not be emotionally read. Interestingly, in looking at the Poker Face lyrics, whilst the opening stansa isn’t exactly W.B.Yeats…
Mum mum mum mah
Mum mum mum mah
Mum mum mum mah
Mum mum mum mah
Mum mum mum mah
… there’s an awful lot of mum going on (altogether now in your best Austrian accents, ‘tell me about your mother’!). Only a half-jest, as even a parent in a state of rage is less frightening for a pre-verbal child than a parent with no discernible emotional state. Thinking about it, the same is probably true for adults too; I tend to be more frightened by the ‘cold blooded killers’ in films who kill with no expression on their faces than the ones with faces contorted in hate or rage.
The more obvious lyrical meaning comes from the chorus:
Can’t read my, can’t read my
No he can’t read my poker face
(She’s got to love nobody)
Can’t read my, can’t read my
No he can’t read my poker face
(She’s got to love nobody)
The whole song being of the hiding behind an unreadable mask whilst manipulating others kind of affair. Incidentally, I heard a guy doing an acoustic cover of this song a few weeks ago; the slower tempo and unglossed production made the whole thing sound like a beautiful ballad about emotional isolation.
My own experience of working with my frozen face in therapy was one of emotional rediscovery on two fronts. On the one hand, I found that I was Poker Facing, and spent some time exploring my own anxiety about having other people see me express myself emotionally. On the other hand, my frozen face helped me to place specific emotions into a kind of stasis so I could avoid experiencing them.
I started massaging my face to help get some mobility back in the muscles, and gurning as ridiculously as possible at mirrors. If all this frozen face stuff is resonating with you, I’d highly recommend experimenting with those two activities. And if you get the paranoid idea that someone is watching you through the mirror, then don’t worry, I went through that stage too. There is someone watching you through the mirror; the disowned critical part of yourself that attacks you for expressing whatever it is you’re holding back (I’m focusing on emotional expression here, but freezing your face could be about holding back a whole host of things).
The thing to remember is that freezing your face involves using voluntary muscles to counter-act automatic muscle action; the voluntary action has just been held in place for so long that it’s become automised and structural. This is what Wilhelm Reich originally called character armour; using voluntary muscles to create stiffened muscle structures that protect the self from something (we tend to brace ourselves for impact after all). Gestalt therapy incorporated this idea into its general approach to bodywork, reconceptualising character armour as a form of creative adjustment. Freezing facial muscles is a great demonstration of retroflection; using voluntary muscles to hold in an outward movement. Undoing retroflection involves reversing the sequence of events by finding out what’s being held in and supporting a completion of that outward movement.
Ultimately, the aim is to regain choice regarding the creative adjustment; in facial freezing, the stiffening of those voluntary muscles becomes rigidly automised. Massaging your face may feel quite silly, but it’s a great first step in gently easing any rigidity that has set in. And as that takes effect, you’ll find that the emotions being held back will start to come more strongly into your experience. The ridiculous gurning has the twofold effect of regaining control over stiffened voluntary muscles, and bringing that critical voice into awareness where it can be reasoned with.
The most interesting thing about this for me is just how revealing facial expression is. If you poker face me, then you’re actually sending quite a clear message: I need to hide something from you. That insight allows me to focus not on finding out what’s being hidden, but on exploring the need to hide.
This is a great post. I am very interested in the frozen face /poker face and or the still face of the mother which ultimately became my own.
I think there might be a correlation with the dead mother syndrome/complex. Baby has to die herslef to survive her mother’s ‘death’ [emotional psychic death]
Anyway lots to think about. thank you for this!
Thanks!
Dead mother syndrome/complex isn’t something I’m familiar with as a concept, so I’ll be reading up on that; thank you for bringing it into my awareness!
I can see the potential for lots of correlation between the two. If you give shape to your thoughts in writing, I’ll be interested in reading.
(I’m also now thinking of how much a part of online interaction the smiley is!)
I find it interesting to observe the self delusion of people assuming that they don’t communicate their inside when they behave in a rigid way.
They communicate like everybody else exactly who they are and the more they try to hide the more it get apparent that they try to hide, and by that they create a need in the other to search them, if these people wants contact with them ( is it that what they truly want?). Some people will then try to figure (figure!) out where they are, some will go in distance to them, some will let them as they are and wait.
A face is not isolated from the rest of the body and other aspects expressing emotions ( voices, movements, creative expression in the world).
How much is a mind trying to relax the face connected with this mind, lost into another well appearance idea? . Would it not be an idea to find out how to create even more distance ( you might need!), or the ambivalence of : “find me, beyond my cold war wall attitude! “.
I see lots of playful ways, how flowers can grow back on wasteland.
“the more they try to hide the more it get apparent that they try to hide, and by that they create a need in the other to search them, if these people wants contact with them (is it that what they truly want?)”
I find it an interesting dynamic that when one person tries to hide, another moves to seek them out. It may or may not be what the hiding person truly wants; I’d stay with what seems self-evident and say that, regardless of what the hiding person wants, the seeking person clearly wants that contact. I wouldn’t want to interpret the motivation of the hiding person by reference to the behaviour of the seeking person.
What seems self-evident about the hiding person is that they need to hide. The need to do that must have been great to have mobilised the voluntary muscles in the face to move against the automatic expressions of feeling that are part of being human.
I don’t think the hiding person creates a need in the seeking person to search them. Another possible response would be for someone to come up against the blank face, lose interest, and move on. I think the need to search will be a pre-existing attitude in the seeker.
My own experience of hiding behind a masked face was about wanting to choose who got to see what I was feeling. The mask started out as a shield against emotional attack, like growing an outer-shell to protect the softer, vulnerable parts within. Ironically, by fixing the mask in place, I lost the choice!
So agree with your words lechatdargent!!
I was diagnosed with schizotypal personality and part of my ‘symptom’ is the detachedness and the ‘stone face’ or what others might see and feel as apathy. Which is not so! My inside life is full of feelings and empathy for the other. It was because I so easily pick up on anothers feelings taht i had to protect myself. Because most feelings were not nice feelings towards my self!
Anyway, dont judge a book by its cover antiphonsgarden. Because the still unconscious dynamics are always stronger than the consious assumptions in my humble opinion.
Is an opinion truly humble when someone assume that I have a shallow perception?
I see these days all kind of tyrants having lead their country’s to despair, assuming they are the victims!
Can it be that by pointing at the own vulnerability all disdain who is an aggression gets legitimated and reacting to this violence (a supposed pre-disposition to find coldness fascinating !?) is confused with the violent act of mistrust who happen before.
As long this violence in this cold attitude is not recognised, as long the other still gets blamed for being intrusive when he/she tries to make sense out of disturbing behaviour, I think we are in a projection on a scapegoat, who gets used to see how he/she will react to be rejected.
Sorry, but I find people who don’t echo in a friendly way in communication hostile and disrupting a natural mutual nourishing communication our specie is used to as surviving optimum.
What am I supposed to not see, what is evidently facing me?
This kind of behaviour is mostly used when a topic gets interesting
and as attentive person I don’t limit my perception of the other to what he/she thinks to communicate. The way people breath, the way the body expresses himself independent from what he is expected to represent , voices, how nature react around this event , all that feeds my awareness and helps me to perceive the situation.
Even if some choose to identify themselves with the part controlling the self, it is touching to see the naivety in it to assume that everybody is limiting his perception to this demand how to be seen.
Wearing a bucket does not prevent to be seen.
I come from a culture where people share openly their feelings and consider that as a polite acknowledging of their next as a co-human.
I think, the English reserve is a side effect of class division and hierarchical struggle in a mercantile society where even emotions gets weight out in therms of the worth of the other. It is seen as proletarian to show spontaneous feelings.That much to a dehumanised environment.
As we are all interconnected, acting out an autistic delusion or for those expecting to be seen more sophisticated:..an over identification with a narcissistic image incoherent with the anyway interactive self,… is affecting the environment and a sign of dysfunction of the common system.
Being concerned about it, is natural care for our humanity.
Hm… my humble opinion was about the unconscious dynamics being stronger than the conscious assumptions antiphonsgarden.
You said “I come from a culture where people share openly their feelings and consider that as a polite acknowledging of their next as a co-human.
I think, the English reserve is a side effect of class division and hierarchical struggle in a mercantile society where even emotions gets weight out in therms of the worth of the other. It is seen as proletarian to show spontaneous feelings.That much to a dehumanised environment.”
I have to be honest and I cant understand most of what you have written. I am sorry for tha because I would like to understand. From what I hear is that you seem to think that one can chose to have a stone face. Yes there are those who can chose to do that but I am talking about [and I think the poster of the original post too?] the stone face as an unconscious defence. And even of one is aware of that defence it still very hard for some to change that.
Being concerned about it is a good thing, but trying to imply your assumptions on peoples inner world is not a good thing. there are reasons why people have a stone face or come acorss as cold.
I am reallly not sure I understood your post though. I am talking about the stone face as a defence, not sure what you are talking about. You are talkng about leaders and cultures?! Not sure why…
You also said “Sorry, but I find people who don’t echo in a friendly way in communication hostile and disrupting a natural mutual nourishing communication our specie is used to as surviving optimum.”
Maybe that is something you could explore in your own perosnal therapy, if you are in therapy.
“Yes there are those who can chose to do that but I am talking about [and I think the poster of the original post too?] the stone face as an unconscious defence. And even of one is aware of that defence it still very hard for some to change that.”
I’d use different technical language (creative adjustment operating out of awareness rather than unconscious defence) but yes, my post is exploring my understanding of frozen/stone face as a defence/adaptation and some of the implications of that for choiceful contact with others.
Well, I can rephrase it for you:
As long the own violence is not felt in this distancing attitude,
I doubt that any change might occur.
And by the way, I don’t consider therapy as a corner were bad children gets send to, if they don’t agree with absurd reality’s.
Antiphonsgarden, you make no sense to me. Unfortunately I cannot respond to something that does not make sense. You seem to be talking about things that no one has mentioned. This is not about your agendas. This post is about unconscious defences that cannot be easily change.
There is much warped thinking in your post so I will leave it here and wont respond again.
Thank you to confirm with great intensity my argument.
Is the cat behind the cactus?
The cat is currently enjoying a (mostly) offline weekend.
Is there something in particular you’d like me to respond to?
to violence!
I have a strange impression that the “defence mechanism” are left unquestioned. A bit like the armament industry pretending to protect peace.
I guess I’m focusing more on support in this post. I wouldn’t leave the frozen face unquestioned, and as therapist I would certainly share some of my own experience of making contact with someone who is freezing their face. I’m finding the violence issue interesting; agreeing with you in some places, disagreeing in others.
Recapping, you brought this up with:
“As long this violence in this cold attitude is not recognised, as long the other still gets blamed for being intrusive when he/she tries to make sense out of disturbing behaviour, I think we are in a projection on a scapegoat, who gets used to see how he/she will react to be rejected.
Sorry, but I find people who don’t echo in a friendly way in communication hostile and disrupting a natural mutual nourishing communication our specie is used to as surviving optimum.”
Then summarised:
“As long the own violence is not felt in this distancing attitude, I doubt that any change might occur.”
I agree that there is violence in the distancing attitude. Using the voluntary muscles to suppress organismic impulses is a highly aggressive act. As the human organism is not generally naturally aggressive towards its own impulses, that begs the question ‘for who or what is this aggression originally intended?’.
The possibilities for change depend on many factors, one of which is how deeply entrenched the adaptation is. Speaking for myself, my facial freezing was a teenage adaptation. The situation is different for someone who made that adaptation as a pre-verbal child and has little or no experience of anything different. Though in both cases you are right that feeling the violence is part of any possible change.
I think there’s another side to the scapegoating. The alternative situation is the accusation of abandonment when the other takes the distancing attitude ‘at face value’ and walks away. Both possibilities strike me as a replay of some original scene; an unaware manipulation of the present situation in an attempt to complete something unfinished. The fact that there is more than one response to the frozen face situation emphasises for me that it is me, not the other, who is responsible for my self; I can decline to be pulled into the replay of an archaic situation.
I also think there is equal violence in the demand to know the emotional world of someone who has made it clear they don’t want to share. For me, it’s enough to know that this other person needs to hide away. I can ask about it out of a personal desire to connect. But it might be that connection isn’t possible for us, in which case fine; I’m not responsible for the other person’s need to hide away. I can choose to wait patiently by the locked door, or I can say ‘now it’s up to you, but if you don’t come out soon I’m going to leave’, or indeed I can just walk away. But why break the door down?
Seeing something clearly is one thing; choosing to share that observation is another. In reading about Buddhist practices, I remember one writer stating that the Buddha opposed evangelism on the grounds that his teachings were designed to remove the illusions that keep us from enlightenment, and that people need to come to the teachings when they’re ready. The logic here being that it is cruel to shatter a person’s illusions when they are unready to deal with the consequences; the light is too bright for someone who has acclimatised to dakrness.
That’s why, whilst I strive towards contact with another, I put more emphasis on support and respecting the resistance I encounter.
How intrusive and demanding is a hostile face to the outside?
We have learned from our hunter and gatherer ancestors to react to such a sign announcing a possible danger in our environment.
The wish to understand what happens to a person who expresses suddenly such an attitude is a old reaction who has helped humanity to survive.
I am amazed that you still imagine one needs to break in, when everything who needs to be know is already visible at the behaviour. By the way, I don’t use your metaphor of the face as door, as it neglects lots of other aspects how a person interacts with the outside…postures,voices, word choice,…!
I propose to see the megalomaniac projection in this, expecting everybody to not see the obvious. The idea that one has power through this attitude over another human or a group.
I don’t need to search for the inside, if the inside communicates already .
This attitude does not prevent the own fragile aspects from hurt but reaffirms the power of ego parts wanting to be recognised as superior, powerful and able to control the environment, repressing emotions as inferior, weak and social irrelevant to the own expected image.
I think, it prevents questioning their own participation in a cold violence still oppressing those hurts and imposes on others to not care about it, and their own participation of creating a society reflecting this kind of mistrust to the human potential as the only reality worth a mature view on life.
I don’t confuse Buddha s spirit with the noises of his followers who wrote a lot, once he was dead, serving their clergy hierarchy purposes.
A cold war wall pretending to protect the citizen of a country, could simply be the oppression of a clique towards this citizen.
Acting cool is fashionable these days to some as posturing.
This cold attitude is the cynical equivalent of the harsh violence.
Psychology without sociology might avoid some interconnection factors.
With solidarity greetings to those aspects who suffers from repression through a regime imposing to confuse a propaganda pretending to care with the real act.
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