The stress response occupies a pivotal position in the depth-psychology corpus, functioning simultaneously as a physiological mechanism, a developmental variable, and a clinical target. The literature traces the concept from Hans Selye’s foundational General Adaptation Syndrome and Walter Cannon’s unitary organismic response through contemporary neuroscientific elaborations that distinguish between acute, adaptive activation and chronic, pathogenic dysregulation. Panksepp maps the pituitary-adrenal and sympathoadrenal axes with neurochemical precision, while Porges reframes the entire construct within Polyvagal Theory, arguing that stress is best understood not as an externally defined event but as a measurable disruption of homeostatic function — a reconceptualization that shifts clinical attention toward cues of safety rather than mere removal of threat. Lanius and colleagues situate the stress response within developmental traumatology, documenting how early life adversity sensitizes HPA axis functioning in ways that persist into adulthood, altering cortisol pulsatility, autonomic tone, and immunological resilience. Payne and Levine attend to the body’s capacity to complete and reverse stress-response cycles, foregrounding the somatic work of trauma therapy. Easwaran bridges psychophysiology and contemplative traditions, insisting that every habitual mental state carries a somatic stress signature. Across these positions, a central tension persists: whether the stress response is a discrete, correctable mechanism or an enduring organismic orientation shaped by relational history.