What types of trauma cause the fawn response? The fawn response is most commonly associated with childhood trauma and complex trauma — types of trauma that arise from repeat events, such as abuse or childhood neglect — rather than single-event trauma, such as an accident.
People who fawn in response to trauma often learn to care for others rather than themselves. For instance, a person who dealt with childhood abuse may have learned that taking care of their parents may have led to fewer violent outbursts.
Fawning is a trauma response where a person develops people-pleasing behaviors to avoid conflict and establish a sense of safety. In other words, the fawn trauma response is a type of coping mechanism that survivors of complex trauma adapt to "appease" their abusers.
In most cases, people-pleasing behavior is motivated by insecurity and low self-esteem caused by trauma bonds in childhood. People who were neglected, mistreated, or abused by their caregivers tried to please them in the hope of receiving attention and better treatment.
The fawn response involves trying to appease or please a person who is both a care provider and a source of threat. Examples of fawning include: “I hoped that by caring for them they might care for me.” “I never showed my true feelings for fear of retaliation.”
The trauma response of fawn – also called 'please-and-appease' – generally sees people develop people-pleasing behaviours to avoid conflict, often taking steps to placate the aggressor.
In other words, a child that suffered from constant anxiety and fear due to trauma may develop a tendency to freeze as a response to triggers as an adult. Those who froze as a response often as children may develop a tendency towards disassociation, anxiety or panic disorders, and even post-traumatic stress disorder.
Traumatic reactions can include a variety of responses, such as intense and ongoing emotional upset, depressive symptoms or anxiety, behavioral changes, difficulties with self-regulation, problems relating to others or forming attachments, regression or loss of previously acquired skills, attention and academic ...
Fawning refers to consistently abandoning your own needs to serve others to avoid conflict, criticism, or disapproval. Fawning is also called the “please and appease” response and is associated with people-pleasing and codependency. “Fawn types seek safety by merging with the wishes, needs, and demands of others.
The 'fawn' response is an instinctual response associated with a need to avoid conflict and trauma via appeasing behaviors. For children, fawning behaviors can be a maladaptive survival or coping response which developed as a means of coping with a non-nurturing or abusive parent.
The fawn response to trauma is not an uncommon one, but it is the newest accepted addition to the primary reactions to perceived danger. The fawn response is when an individual tries to avoid or minimize distress or danger by pleasing and appeasing the threat.
Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are a broader collection of natural bodily reactions to stressful, frightening, or dangerous events. This sympathetic nervous system response dates back to our ancestors coming face-to-face with dangerous animals.
Childhood trauma is often a root cause of codependency. They don't always result, but for many people codependent relationships are a response to unaddressed past traumas. One reason may be that childhood trauma is usually family-centered: abuse, neglect, domestic violence, or even just divorce and fighting.
The tendency to please is related to Dependent Personality Disorder. While the people-pleaser may not need others to do things for them, they do have a need for others, regardless. The pleasing personality is also related to the Masochistic Personality type, which also corresponds with Dependent Personality.
When empaths are exposed to early trauma or abuse their young nervous system may develop without healing making them hypervigilant. They can become exquisitely attuned to their environment to ward off threats and ensure they are safe or enter a state of hyperarousal.
Emotional Responses Related to Fawning/People-Pleasing
Difficulty saying 'no' to others. Taking on more responsibility, even when already feeling overwhelmed. Difficulty setting clear personal boundaries. Often taken advantage of by others, especially in relationships.
A fawn response, also called submit, is common among codependents and typical in trauma-bonded relationships with narcissists and abusers. When fawning, we seek to please and appease someone to avoid conflict. Internally, we're unable to regulate our emotions. We frantically look to someone else to normalize them.
But repetitive, nearly constant apologies for every little thing—or, what Psychologist Paige Carambio, PsyD calls, “apologizing for existing”—can actually be an after-effect of trauma, a self-preservation technique survivors may think they still need to utilize in order to protect themselves.
Fight, flight, freeze, flop, friend
All five responses are our bodies' automatic ways of protecting us from further harm and surviving a dangerous situation: Fight: physically fighting, pushing, struggling, and fighting verbally e.g. saying 'no'.
Smiling when discussing trauma is a way to minimize the traumatic experience. It communicates the notion that what happened “wasn't so bad.” This is a common strategy that trauma survivors use in an attempt to maintain a connection to caretakers who were their perpetrators.
What does childhood trauma in adults look like? Childhood trauma in adults can impact experiences and relationships with others due to experienced feelings of shame and guilt. Childhood trauma in adults also results in feeling disconnected, and being unable to relate to others.