Fawning is a trauma response where a person finds themselves responding to someone they perceive as dangerous by engaging in people-pleasing and submissive behaviors.1 This response is an attempt to “keep the peace” and appease the person who may be causing harm in order to reduce the intensity or frequency of that harm. Common fawning behaviors include finding it difficult to say no, being overly apologetic, and taking on responsibility for the other person’s emotional reactions.
Over time, fawning can become a generalized response, extending beyond interactions with the abuser to other relationships and situations. This means that a person might start using people-pleasing and submissive behaviors even with those who are not a threat. This generalized response can stem from a learned belief that being overly accommodating and taking responsibility for others’ emotions is necessary for safety and acceptance. As a result, someone who experienced abuse might find it challenging to assert their own needs and boundaries, leading to feelings of exhaustion and resentment.
Is Your Nervous System on Constant Overdrive?
Are you constantly feeling you need to gear up for conflict or avoid it? This could be a sign of PTSD, which is treatable! BetterHelp provides convenient and affordable online therapy, starting at $65 per week and is FSA/HSA eligible by most providers. Take a free online assessment and get matched with the right therapist for you!
What Is Fawning?
Fawning is one of four fear responses (e.g., fight, flight, freeze, fawn) that are responsible for our survival. It involves excessive people-pleasing, agreeableness, and submission as a way to avoid conflict and ensure safety. Fawning typically develops as a coping mechanism in response to interpersonal trauma, specially when fighting back, escaping, or avoiding the abuser isn’t a viable option. While fawning behaviors are usually directed at the abuser, they can also become a generalized pattern, extending to other individuals in the person’s life.
Fawning Within the Cycle of Abuse
Fawning often occurs during what is known as the “honeymoon phase” in the cycle of abuse. This phase happens after an abusive incident, where the perpetrator may apologize and show remorse for their actions. During this time, the abuser might also become particularly loving and affectionate, creating a sense of hope that things will change for the better. This shift can trigger fawning behaviors because a person might believe that if they act perfectly and do everything to appease the abuser, the abuse will stop, and the relationship will remain peaceful.
What Type of Trauma Causes Fawning?
Fawning typically develops as a response to interpersonal trauma, particularly in environments where the individual feels powerless and the trauma is chronic. The behaviors occur when the brain determines that pleasing or appeasing a perpetrator (as opposed to fighting or freezing) offers the highest chance of survival. Fawning can become especially ingrained in individuals with relationship PTSD or complex PTSD (CPTSD) as a way to maintain some normalcy in a violent environment.
Here are common types of trauma that can cause someone to develop a fawning response:
- Childhood trauma: The inherent power imbalance experienced in childhood trauma often leads to fawning as a safety response. It is easiest and safest for a child to be obedient and respectful of their parents or caregivers, even if the action feels wrong or inappropriate. Fawning as a child can lead to long-term consequences, including disregarding their own internal experiences and people-pleasing behaviors.
- Intimate partner violence: The intimidation and manipulation that occurs in intimate partner abuse often leads to a fawning response. These appeasing behaviors are meant to minimize the risk of violence and avoid any altercations from the abuser.
- Religious trauma: Experiencing trauma in a religious environment affects a person’s entire belief system about themselves and the world. Most religions teach unquestioning respect as the primary component of a “good follower.” The insulated nature of religious communities can also make challenging authority feel very high stakes. These values often translate to people-pleasing, appeasing, and submissive behaviors to remain included in the group.
- Bullying: The experience of being bullied can make you feel powerless and vulnerable; in these situations, submission is often the “path of least resistance.” Making yourself small and unnoticeable through appeasing behaviors could reduce the amount of attention and abuse endured by bullies and can continue as a pattern after the abuse ends.
- Racism: Being attacked or abused for your racial identity can often happen in a situation where fawning and appeasing is the only safe choice. These submissive behaviors can help the situation resolve and allow the victim to exit the environment more quickly, leading to faster nervous system recovery.
- Abduction or captivity: When a person has no power or autonomy over their survival, they have no choice but to trust their captors to keep them safe. These feelings can persist after release or rescue, resulting in chronic people-pleasing behaviors.
Fawn Response Examples
Fawning can take on many different forms, depending on the individual and the type of trauma they’ve experienced. Often associated with the term “appeasement,” fawning behaviors might include people-pleasing, submissiveness, politeness, denial, or approval-seeking behaviors.2 It’s important to understand that the type of fawning response a person exhibits can change over time. Factors like age, the amount of time that has passed, ongoing traumatic experiences, or receiving clinical trauma treatment can all influence how fawning behaviors develop and change over time.
Common fawn trauma response examples include:
- Being overly apologetic
- Unable to say “no” (to anyone)
- Assuming responsibility for another person’s emotional reactions and mood
- Trying to predict and actively avoid behaviors that might upset others
- Avoiding talking about issues that would trigger the abuser
- Excessive complimenting of the abuser
- Smiling or laughing while discussing a painful experience
- Ignoring one’s own needs, wants, and feelings
- Blaming themself for or believing they deserved the abuse
- Being in denial about the abuse
- Taking over parental roles and being super-responsible
- Never asking for needs
- Never showing anger, sadness, or hurt in front of others
Treatment for Trauma & PTSD
Therapy for PTSD – Get help recovering from trauma from a licensed therapist. BetterHelp starts at $65 per week and is FSA/HSA eligible by most providers. Free Assessment
Online PTSD Treatment – Talkiatry offers personalized care from psychiatrists who listen and take insurance. Get matched with a specialist in just 15 minutes. Take their assessment.
How to Heal From the Fawn Trauma Response
Healing from the fawn response begins with recognizing and understanding the patterns of people-pleasing and submissive behavior you turn to. You will likely need to work with a skilled trauma therapist to address fawning behaviors, learn coping skills for trauma triggers, and develop self-love. Engaging in self-care activities and surrounding yourself with supportive friends and family can help reinforce the work you are doing in therapy.
It is important to note that you cannot process trauma if you are still in an unsafe, traumatic environment. You need to establish physical safety to be able to work through the emotional impact. Once you are safe, you can start healing by seeking professional support, practicing self-compassion, and prioritizing your well-being.
Here are eight tips and some worksheets that can help you to stop fawning:
1. Start With Noticing & Honoring Basic Needs
Being in a prolonged trauma situation puts your body and mind in survival mode. Your most basic needs can feel like a source of shame and vulnerability that draws attention and punishment from the abuser. Thus, many trauma survivors learn to ignore these necessities. To heal from your trauma and reestablish a healthy connection with your body, start by noticing and honoring your needs to eat, rest, and move.3 For example, take a break when feeling tired or overwhelmed. Avoid missing meals when you are hungry. As you address these needs, your body can get out of survival mode, allowing you to heal and regain balance.
8 Free Worksheets for Trauma Healing
This collection of worksheets provides practical tools and strategies for managing trauma symptoms.
2. Become Aware of Your Fawning Behavior
Fawning may have been necessary for survival when faced with trauma. However, outside of that context, trauma responses can interfere with healing from trauma, developing a healthy sense of self, and fostering relationships. For many trauma survivors, fawning becomes second nature. In order to stop fawning, begin to pay attention to your behavioral patterns–when, how, and with whom you use fawning behaviors. Approach this process with curiosity and compassion rather than judgment.
Here are some questions to ask yourself that can help you become aware of your fawning behavior:
- Will doing this favor be at the expense of my own mental or physical health?
- Do I feel responsible for the moods of people around me right now?
- Am I ignoring or denying something I need or am feeling right now?
- Am I apologizing for something that I have no responsibility for?
- Did I feel like I didn’t have the right to say “no” or set boundaries with the other person?
3. Allow Yourself to Have Complex Feelings
Allowing for complex reactions to the abuser is often crucial to healing the fawn response. You may love and admire some qualities of the abuser and treasure moments of kindness while simultaneously feeling anger, terror, dislike, or hatred toward them. One response does not negate the other. Accepting this complexity can provide a sense of relief.
It is important to note that you might be afraid of or avoid anger, especially if you associate this emotion with your trauma. However, anger can be separate from violence and has a purpose, such as letting us know when others threaten or violate our boundaries. Learning to notice, acknowledge, and effectively convey anger without attacking another person is part of healing. Anger shows that a part of you knows you deserve better.
4. Let Go of Any Shame
Letting go of any shame is a crucial part of healing a fawn response because shame perpetuates the cycle of people-pleasing. Shame will cause you to feel bad about yourself and, therefore, less worthy of asserting your needs and boundaries. Your fawning trauma response was not a conscious choice. Rather, it was a built-in survival mechanism. You did what you had to do to survive.
By releasing the shame you feel about your abuse, you can feel compassion towards yourself, which will open you up to treating yourself better and develop more assertive, authentic ways of interacting with others.
5. Accept You Never Deserved the Abuse
In the face of ongoing trauma, believing you deserve the abuse can provide hope that you have some influence over the abuser. The abuser would change their ways and end your trauma if you could just say the right words or be “good enough” (e.g., cleaning the house, in a specific sport or academics, in appearance, etc.).On the other hand, accepting your inability to control the situation can lead to unbearable hopelessness and despair. Thus, many trauma survivors cling to hope that their efforts to appease their abusers would end their pain. However, recognize this survival response is no longer in your best interest. The perpetrator was responsible for their behaviors and choices. No one ever deserves abuse, including you.
6. Engage in Self-Care
Making time for comfort and enjoyable activities is essential when addressing fawning. In survival mode, people often have little time or energy for these things. Focusing on all the different types of self-care is a great way to help your body and mind get out of survival mode.
7. Seek Professional Support
The fawning response and other PTSD symptoms do not go away on their own. There are many different types of trauma therapies that can help you rewire parts of your mind and body that got stuck in the traumatic events. A trauma-informed therapist can help you uncover the underlying reasons for your fawning behavior and learn healthier ways to cope with and respond to difficult situations. You can then live in the present and make choices about your behaviors rather than continuously reliving your experiences whenever faced with trauma triggers.
8. Find Social Support
Living in a complex trauma situation can be incredibly frightening, isolating, and lonely. Overcoming a fawn response should be different. Start looking around for safe and supportive people with whom you can share your reclaimed self as you heal from trauma.
For some, support comes from a peer or therapy group of individuals with a similar trauma history. For others, a friend or loved one with whom they feel safe offers relief.
How to Find a Trauma-Informed Therapist
Grow Therapy is an online therapist directory that provides many different filters, making it easy to find a therapist who specializes in treating trauma and who takes your insurance. Alternatively, online therapy services such as BetterHelp or Talkspace can provide you with a trauma-informed therapist from the comfort of your own home. There are also online psychiatry services, such as Talkiatry, which can provide comprehensive care for individuals who want to explore medication options for their more severe trauma symptoms.
In My Experience
Frequently Asked Questions
Is People Pleasing a Trauma Response?
It depends! People-pleasing behaviors are often associated with the fawn response to traumatic experiences. They can result from relationship trauma in childhood or adulthood, but can also come from other dynamics that may not be considered traumatic. It’s also important to note that people pleasing is not inherently a bad trait; it only becomes problematic when you are working to please others at the expense of your own well-being.
What Is the Difference Between the Fawn Response in Adulthood Vs. Childhood?
As a child, you have very little autonomy or choice in questioning or challenging the behaviors of others, especially adults. In adulthood, you technically have more power, and those struggling with a fawning response may still feel like children in many situations. The symptoms and signs of a fawn response look very similar across the lifespan. Being overly polite, not expressing personal needs or emotions, and avoiding either the abuser or the topic of abuse are signs that can persist regardless of age.
Choosing Therapy strives to provide our readers with mental health content that is accurate and actionable. We have high standards for what can be cited within our articles. Acceptable sources include government agencies, universities and colleges, scholarly journals, industry and professional associations, and other high-integrity sources of mental health journalism. Learn more by reviewing our full editorial policy.
-
Walker, P. (2013). Complex PTSD: From surviving to thriving. CA, USA: An Azure Coyote Book.
-
Porter, S. (2018). Treating PTSD: A compassion-focused CBT approach. New York: Routledge Press.
We regularly update the articles on ChoosingTherapy.com to ensure we continue to reflect scientific consensus on the topics we cover, to incorporate new research into our articles, and to better answer our audience’s questions. When our content undergoes a significant revision, we summarize the changes that were made and the date on which they occurred. We also record the authors and medical reviewers who contributed to previous versions of the article. Read more about our editorial policies here.
Author: Shirley Porter, RP, RSW, CCC (No Change)
Reviewer: Meera Patel, DO (No Change)
Primary Changes: Revised sections titled “What Is Fawning,” “What Type of Trauma Causes Fawning?,” “Fawn Response Examples,” and “How to Heal From the Fawn Trauma Response.” Added section titled “FAQs.” New content written by Faith Watson Doppelt, LPC, LAC, and medically reviewed by Naveed Saleh, MD, MS. Fact-checked and edited for improved readability and clarity.
Author: Shirley Porter, RP, RSW, CCC (No Change)
Reviewer: Meera Patel, DO (No Change)
Primary Changes: Fact-checked and edited for improved readability and clarity.
Author: Shirley Porter, RP, RSW, CCC
Reviewer: Meera Patel, DO
Your Voice Matters
Can't find what you're looking for?
Request an article! Tell ChoosingTherapy.com’s editorial team what questions you have about mental health, emotional wellness, relationships, and parenting. Our licensed therapists are just waiting to cover new topics you care about!
Leave your feedback for our editors.
Share your feedback on this article with our editors. If there’s something we missed or something we could improve on, we’d love to hear it.
Our writers and editors love compliments, too. :)
Additional Resources
To help our readers take the next step in their mental health journey, Choosing Therapy has partnered with leaders in mental health and wellness. Choosing Therapy is compensated for marketing by the companies included below.
Online Therapy
BetterHelp – Get support and guidance from a licensed therapist. BetterHelp has over 30,000 therapists who provide convenient and affordable online therapy. BetterHelp starts at $65 per week and is FSA/HSA eligible by most providers. Take a free online assessment and get matched with the right therapist for you. Free Assessment
PTSD Treatment & Medication Management Covered by Insurance
Talkiatry – offers personalized care from psychiatrists who listen. They offer medication management and they’re in-network with every major insurer. Take a free assessment.
Ketamine Therapy for PTSD
Better U – offers personalized ketamine therapy with 1-on-1 coaching, all from the comfort of your own home. Address the root cause of PTSD and live a more fulfilling life. Start Your Free Assessment
Trauma & Abuse Newsletter
A free newsletter for those impacted by trauma or abuse. Get encouragement, helpful tips, and the latest information. Sign Up
Choosing Therapy Directory
You can search for therapists by specialty, experience, insurance, or price, and location. Find a therapist today.
Best Online Therapy Services
There are a number of factors to consider when trying to determine which online therapy platform is going to be the best fit for you. It’s important to be mindful of what each platform costs, the services they provide you with, their providers’ training and level of expertise, and several other important criteria.
9 Types of Therapy for Trauma
Experiencing trauma can result in distressing and debilitating symptoms, but remind yourself that there is hope for healing. If you or a loved one is suffering from the aftereffects of trauma, consider seeking therapy. Trauma therapy can help you reclaim your life and a positive sense of self.