When we think about stress and trauma responses, most of us are familiar with fight, flight, or freeze, but there is also a lesser known, equally important response called fawning. Fawning is a nervous system response to danger, often presenting in people with chronic emotional, relational or developmental trauma. Fawning is more common than you think, and is something which I once noticed as a pattern in myself too. But the good news is that recognizing and working on healing this pattern can lead to deeper self-trust, more authentic relationships, and emotional freedom as I discovered myself.
What is the Fawn Response?
The fawn response is primarily a trauma based survival mechanism where an individual seeks to appease a threat to avoid harm. It’s an unconscious strategy to maintain safety. Often expressing through over accommodating the needs of others, suppressing personal needs, and avoiding conflict at all costs. It is a complex blended nervous system state which drives behaviours.
What is the Science Behind Fawning?
So let’s take a look at the why. The human nervous system is wired for survival. When a person perceives danger, the autonomic nervous system (ANS) kicks in to protect them. This system includes the sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight) and the parasympathetic nervous system (freeze/fawn). The fawn response can arise when neither fighting nor fleeing is safe. The brain subconsciously determines that appeasing the threat is the best way to survive. Over time, this behaviour can become hardwired, showing up in relationships, work environments, and daily interactions. Even long after the original danger is gone. The thought of even trying to say no in any way can become quite terrifying.
Many people don’t realise they are in a fawn response because it is often rewarded socially. It’s therefore important to distinguish between genuine kindness and trauma driven fawning. Fawning stems from fear, not from choice. People in fawn say yes when they want to say no, smile or laugh when feeling uncomfortable, feel guilty for prioritising themselves and have a reduced felt sense of identity. Fawning has a high energetic cost to our body and mind.
What are the Common Signs of Fawning?
Common signs include; chronic people pleasing, difficulty setting boundaries and feeling responsible for others’ emotions. Additional signs include; avoiding conflict at all costs, feeling anxious when others are upset and suppressing your own needs or desires.
You can read more about fawning in this book by therapist Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. Published in 2021, Pete Walker is said to have coined the term fawning.
Healing from the Fawn Response
So how can I heal from the fawn response you might ask? Well it does take time but it begins with noticing your patterns. Learning to regulate and build capacity in your nervous system is important work too. Working with a somatic therapist including the practice of setting boundaries and saying no from a place of safety helps to create the conditions for lasting neuroplastic changes in the nervous system and subsequent behaviours.
So in summary, the fawn response is an often unconscious survival strategy which is not meant to be a permanent way of living. Fawning comes with high risks of energetic depletion and burn out. If you’ve recognized yourself in this blog, know that you’re not alone, embracing and healing the fawning response over time is possible with support. And if you are feeling curious about exploring your own people pleasing behaviour and want to reclaim your sense of self, then I’d love to have a friendly chat with you to explore.
Angela Green, The BodyWise Facilitator.
To book a Friendly 30 Min Chat with Me….
