The Fourth F of Trauma: Fawning
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I am sat with a client I now know for over a year. He came to me to work on his sense of imposter syndrome, his constant questioning of his goals, and his seemingly never-ending search for his voice – at work or with his family. In this session, he is talking about a recent traumatic incident. He tells me how he was in an unfamiliar place with someone he did not know and he was asked to partake in an activity he would not have chosen on his own for a million years. He is deeply emotional as he remembers what happened. He did not freeze, nor did he listen to his instinct and leave - but why couldn’t he just say no? This stranger was not “forcing him” to do anything. As he got to this part of the story, his confusion and disappointment in himself were visible not only in his face, but also in his entire body. I had to validate what happened to him, but also frame it so it made sense. I said: “You know, fight or flight are not the only ways we handle threat. Sometimes it’s either freeze or fawn.” He had to clarify: “What was the last one you mentioned?”
“Fawn - When we go along and comply to stay safe.”
Suddenly, his shoulders dropped, his chest rose as if a heavy burden has been lifted, and tears started to slowly stream down his cheeks. “That’s me. I am so tired of doing this.” Something profound yet simple in the naming of the fourth F resonated with him deeply. This was not a release, however. He was finally letting a huge sadness in. Someone had not only named his experience as trauma, but his response to it also finally made sense. And so, he made sense to himself.
What Is Fawning?
Most folks have heard of fight, flight, and freeze as three common trauma responses. Fawn is what we do when the first three are not available to us [1]. Think of a child in the hands of an adult aggressor: fight or flight (escaping) may not be an option for this child. What’s left is freeze or fawn.
Fawning as a trauma response can be described as “a response to a threat by becoming more appealing to the threat.” (Pete Walker, Complex PTSD: from Surviving to Thriving). Instead of signalling to the aggressor that we are feeling the threat, sensing the urge to fight, or flee - we stay safe by doing the opposite: we form/fake a connection to the aggressor.
We smile, while we are sensing all the red flags. We laugh at our boss’ inappropriate jokes. We give auntie or uncle a kiss because we are told to. We become our parent’s therapist because they are alone and we are “best friends.” We are the peacekeepers of our household. We keep gas-lighting ourselves instead of blaming the real person at fault. And the list goes on.
Fawning happens when we depend on the aggressor. Whether it be a parent, an elder, or a boss, we have a relationship with the aggressor that feels necessary to maintain in order to survive. The other aspect of fawning is that it typically occurs in complex trauma situations (traumatic incidents that occur with frequency). The ability to fawn is a learned survival skill that accumulates through multiple incidents of traumatic events, and it is how we learn to pivot to survive the threat. Fawning is mostly the byproduct of relational, ongoing trauma. The kind that we may consider the norm (“all families had that, right?”) or our own failing (“I was always bad at understanding others.”)
Because fawning is a learned survival skill, it can sometimes feel like a personality trait; a genuine, intelligent skill that feels authentic to gain and exercise. Any skill that saves the individual from threat is worthwhile. However, the reason we still categorize it as a trauma response - and not a personality trait- is because fawning occurs when the individual doesn’t feel much of a choice in the matter. Fawning is necessary so we can remain safe. It may even be accompanied by self-gaslighting (“it was my fault to make him angry”). And so, it’s the opposite of personality and autonomy – because someone else holds the safety and we feel the need to bend to those terms.
Fawning is not our personality. In fawning, we feel the need to be more or less of ourselves: more/less creative, more/less vocal, more/less smart, etc. (Ingrid Clayton, Fawning). Dr. Clayton also names code switching as a form of fawning – when we play to certain racial, gender, or cultural stereotypes to fit into an aggressive system on a larger, societal scale. Think of acting “white,” “manly,” “serious,” etc., to fit into a social/cultural group.
What Shows Up as Fawning?
In therapy, we aim to help replace the fawn response for two reasons. Firstly, fawning keeps happening when there is no threat – in other words, being less or more of something now has turned into a go-to response in any relationship. Secondly, we are hoping to replace the fawn response with a more authentic response that feels like the client’s true choice. We look for fawning when someone comes in hoping to work on the search for who they are and the relational issues that come with not knowing who they are; lack of self-esteem, constant anxiety in situations that other people seem to be okay in, addiction (to different things), eating disorders and disordered eating, and other dissociative activities. Many clients call themselves codependent, or people-pleasers, when in fact it’s the result of their fawning response. And then the work begins…
If you are getting curious about fawning response in yourself, start with what Dr. Clayton asks in her book: Is [what feels like] the right thing the best thing?
Did you find this topic interesting? If you wish to discuss the four Fs of trauma response with me, reach out to me. I would be glad to chat.
[1] I should note that much like any theory, the four Fs of trauma response theory has its own criticism, which I recommend reading up on. In my own practice, I try to take any theory with a grain of salt. I bring these up as conversation starters to help us start an exploration into client’s experience and form our own I insightful understanding of each experience individually.
