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acfox13 t1_jblmeae wrote

What about operant conditioning? Do people have "free will" if their behaviors are unconscious incompetence or unconscious competence? What about trauma responses for folks with PTSD?

If someone is outside their window of tolerance, the prefrontal cortex goes offline and their lower brain regions take over. The person experiencing it feels like their body "took over" until the prefrontal cortex comes back online. Sometimes folks have enough bandwidth to consciously practice a regulation exercise to help their prefrontal cortex come back online faster, but it takes training and practice to accomplish. (See polyvagal theory: Stephen Porges and Deb Dana)

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