Managing the fawn response
The Fawn response is one of four defensive reactions to ongoing trauma. Those who fawn tend to put the needs and wants of others ahead of themselves at the cost of the health of their own egos, and the protection of and compassion for themselves. ―Pete Walker
👥 Serves: 1 person
🎚 Difficulty: Hard
⏳ Total time: Ongoing
🥣 Ingredients: Vitality, “The fawn response: People pleasing, self-abandonment, and standing up for yourself” Being Well podcast episode (if you’re curious to find out more about it!)
🤓 Wholebeing Domains: Accomplishments, Awareness, Discomfortability, Liberatory Learning
💪 Wholebeing Skills: Acceptance, Agency, Assertiveness, Autonomy, Boundary setting, Dealing with shame, Non-judgement, Perspective, Self-awareness, Stress management
Managing the fawn response
📝 Description
Tips to shift from maladaptive to adaptive fawn response.
This recipe is one of four dedicated to the topic of stress responses, looking specifically at the fight response. In a nutshell, a stress response is a way in which you can respond to stress in life. You might be familiar with the first three as the fourth one is newer:
- Fight response: You can fight it.
- Flight response: You can run away from it.
- Freeze: You can play dead like animals do.
- Fawn: You can try to appease the person who is hurting you.
Importantly, you have access to all four responses, but you tend to develop a habit (build early on in life) to focus on one of these responses. Remember that stress responses are adaptive, meaning that they’re here to help you solve problems. However, they can become maladaptive and not serve you well. Are you managing the more adaptive aspects of them or are you falling prey to the more problematic aspects of them?
The following activity has been inspired by a conversation between Forrest Hanson and Dr Rick Hanson on their Being Well podcast (Spotify & YouTube). To explore the other stress responses, check out the following recipes: “Managing the fight response”, “Managing the flight response”, and “Managing the freeze response”.
👣 Steps
Step 1 – Understanding the fawn response
The fawn response is the newest addition to the four stress responses thanks to the work on childhood trauma and complex PTSD of Pete Walker. Fawning is a bit different from the other approaches: fighting is a conflict strategy, fleeing and freezing are avoidance strategies, whereas fawning is an appeasement strategy. It’s when you give somebody else what you think they want so they stop hurting you. The fawn response serves various adaptive functions:
- It tries to keep you safe.
- It tries to maintain the stability of the group.
- It tries to get other people to like you so you belong.
What does the fawn response look like? Common behaviours include people-pleasing, self-abandonment, difficulty saying no, chronic self-sacrifice, a fear of conflict, etc. In particular, fawning is connected to your relationship with your caregivers early-on in life: Were you praised for what you were or what you could do and especially, what you could do for other people? This can lead to a relatively unstable sense of self.
Step 2 – How to deal with people-pleasing?
Dr Hanson shared a lot of advice on dealing with this behavioural tendency and developing a stronger sense of self.
- Develop a stronger sense somatically of your interior, of your own vitality.
- Establish optimal distance between yourself and others.
- Let go of the sense of the demand whereby somebody else’s need is your problem.
- Recognise your inherent wholeness and completeness to foster self-acceptance.
- Express yourself to develop more of a sense of self-integration and be authentic.