---
title: "Glossary"
order: 25.5
---

# Glossary of Key Terms

**Bandwidth**
The emotional or mental capacity available for processing life. Not fixed; fluctuates based on stressors, rest, and sensory input.

**Deep Feeler**
A person who processes stimuli—emotional, sensory, relational—with unusual depth, intensity, and empathy.

**Dissociation**
A trauma response involving detachment from self, emotions, or the present moment. A protective disconnect, not a choice.

**Emotional Contagion**
The unconscious absorption of others' emotional states.

**Fawn Response**
A stress response involving people-pleasing, appeasing, or overcompensating to prevent conflict or harm.

**Freeze Response**
A biological survival state where speech, processing, and movement slow or halt to reduce perceived threat.

**Hyper-Responsibility**
The learned belief that one must anticipate, manage, or prevent others' emotional states.

**Parentification**
A childhood role reversal in which a child takes on adult emotional or practical responsibilities.

**Projection**
The psychological act of attributing one's own feelings, fears, or traits onto another person.

**Shutdown**
A whole-system collapse triggered by overload. Characterized by silence, withdrawal, numbness, or emotional absence.

**Survival Patterns**
Learned behaviors—freeze, fawn, overfunctioning—developed to navigate unsafe or unpredictable environments.

**Trigger**
A stimulus (sensory, emotional, relational) that activates past trauma or pushes the system beyond capacity.

**Withdrawal**
A retreat into silence or isolation, often for regulation and safety, not rejection.