Fawning Trauma Response: Why It Happens & How to Stop

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

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.

 

 

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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.