[One cannot be careful enough in the choice of one's parents--on the biopsychosocial development of adaptation systems for distress in Homo sapiens].

Actual results of brain research show that we might have more than one system to cope with distress. The most archaic one might be the system freeze/dissociation. The second one is the system attachment/relationship/herd/support. Articles by Allan N. Schore show that the central regulation of the self, the affects, and the interpersonal relations are impaired permanently by relational traumata/attachment traumata during early childhood. Jaak Panksepp differentiates the distress systems panic versus fear. On the one side we find the cluster panic--periaqueductal gray PAG--lateral septum--gyrus cinguli--glutamate--opioids--attachment--parasympathetic autonomic nerve system--trophotorphic state--hypometabolism--freeze reaction--dissociation, on the other side the cluster fear--enemy--sympathetic autonomic nerve system--ergotrophic state--hypermetabolism--fight and flight--cognition and learning. It can be helpful for therapy strategies to differentiate these systems.