Trauma Responses: Fawn

Some of you may have heard of the trauma responses "fight, flight, or freeze" being common words to describe how someone acts when they are faced with a situation of perceived danger. However, new to the psychological world over the last several years is the "fawn" response - which would add a fourth way to react to a traumatic incident. The fawn response typically comes out of childhood trauma, and it is when a person tries to move toward and appease the person or people in control of the traumatic or dangerous situation.

We might see a fawn response in children who are experiencing a bullying situation - where a child may start complimenting, being kind to, or even bullying others with the perpetrator who bullies them. We also will see this in domestically violent relationships in which the survivor is trying to do whatever they can to make sure that the abuse isn't continuing (this could include complimenting, reassuring, doing favors, etc) and the interaction stays safer.

A key part of this response is putting your own needs to the side, or even turning them off. In order to feel as though you are comfortable in the exchange with the other person, you end up saying or feeling that your needs/wants are not as important.

Scenario: You ask your partner to go to the store to get milk for a dish you are making for dinner. Your partner turns to you and says, "Ugh! Right now? I have been working all day."

a. Fight response - "I have been working too! Get off your butt and go!"

b. Flight response - "Nevermind. I am going now - bye!"

c. Freeze response - Loss for words.

d. Fawn response - "I am so sorry for asking. You have been working all day. I don't even really need the milk - I will make something else. It's not important. Do you want to tell me about your work day instead?"

e. Alternative response - "Yes please. I understand that it is inconvenient for you to go right now, and I am asking because I am cooking and I am worried about leaving it at this place in the process. Would you prefer to stir this while I run out or would you prefer to grab the milk?"

This is a fairly extreme example, but you can see how the fawn response shows that you are taking back what you have originally asked and then moving to support the other person who snapped at you. However, a lot of the time, you may be fawning when it is no longer needed. An important thing to note is that likely the fawn response came from keeping you safe - it helped you stay connected when you were in an unsafe or neglectful situation - and that does not mean that you have to keep responding that way. If you are still responding that way when you are NOT in an unsafe or neglectful space or if you are unsure if you are doing this, here are some things you can consider:

1. Am I worried about advocating for myself because I think that it will cause someone to get mad (but there is no actual risk of danger and I 'logically' know that)?

2. Am I worried about advocating for something I want because I fear rejection/abandonment/detachment?

3. Are my values being considered in my actions and the actions of those around me?

4. Can I respond in a way that aligns my values, wants, and needs with those being requested by the other person? Am I regularly assuming that only one of us can get what we want?

5. Am I always compromising?

6. Am I even noticing that I am compromising or not bringing things up for fear of any of the above?

7. Do I often tell myself, "Well, they have had it worse, so I should take care of them - I don't really need anything. I can take care of myself."

Try to see where you might be experiencing the fawn response, and try to pull yourself back from it. As we would recommend for any trauma trigger, notice if you are responding this way to danger in the present or if it is a part of you that is responding from the past. If you are noticing that you are not in danger, but you are still feeling as though you should fawn, try to notice if there is a way that you can support the attachment AND your needs/wants being met.

More to come on this topic, but a lot of us fawn because we worry that advocating for our wants would mean risking the attachment, and when we are thinking about risking the attachment, nothing else seems to matter. We are humans (aka beings of connection), from the time we are born we do not survive without attachment... so it makes a lot of sense that we would fawn if we felt that our connection (and therefore survival) was at risk.

Please see next post in the next few weeks about "fighting above the attachment" to avoid further fawning, to support each person's needs/wants, and to continue to feel supported and cared for even when experiencing negative feelings with or toward your partner/family member/friend.