Fawning is an attempt to avoid conflict by appeasing people. They are both extremely common in neurodiverse people as it is a way for them to hide their neurodiverse behaviours and appear what is deemed to be “normal”.
In a nutshell, “fawning” is the use of people-pleasing to diffuse conflict, feel more secure in relationships, and earn the approval of others. It's a maladaptive way of creating safety in our connections with others by essentially mirroring the imagined expectations and desires of other people.
Walker describes how fawning occurs when people “seek safety by merging with the wishes, needs, and demands of others. They act as if they unconsciously believe that the price of admission to any relationship is the forfeiture of all their needs, rights, preferences, and boundaries.”
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.
Understanding the Fawn Response
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 fawn response
In childhood, this might involve: ignoring your own needs to take care of a parent. making yourself as useful and helpful as possible. neglecting or failing to develop your own self-identity.
Traumatic experiences can initiate strong emotions and physical reactions that can persist long after the event. Children may feel terror, helplessness, or fear, as well as physiological reactions such as heart pounding, vomiting, or loss of bowel or bladder control.
Middle English speakers adapted an Old English word meaning "to rejoice" to create the verb faunen, which shifted in spelling over time to become fawn.
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.
fawn·ing ˈfȯ-niŋ ˈfä- : seeking or used to seek approval or favor by means of flattery.
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.
Fight, flight and freeze are common trauma responses, but there's a fourth called Fawn which is often experienced when dealing with a narcissist.
Fawn is your body's stress response to try to please someone to avoid conflict. The goal of the fight, flight, freeze, and fawn response is to decrease, end, or evade danger and return to a calm, relaxed state.
A fourth, less discussed, response to trauma is called fawning, or people-pleasing. The fawn response is a coping mechanism in which individuals develop people-pleasing behaviors to avoid conflict, pacify their abusers, and create a sense of safety.
Fawning often first develops in early childhood when a traumatic event has been perpetrated by a parent or primary caregiver, explains Walker. A child who has been abused may learn to fawn to avoid any further abuse, such as physical violence, sexual abuse, or verbal abuse.
Other manifestations of childhood trauma in adulthood include difficulties with social interaction, multiple health problems, low self-esteem and a lack of direction. Adults with unresolved childhood trauma are more prone to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicide and self-harm.
Suffering from chronic or ongoing depression. Practicing avoidance of people, places, or things that may be related to the traumatic event; this also can include an avoidance of unpleasant emotions. Flashbacks, nightmares, and body memories regarding the traumatic event.
The freeze, flop, friend, fight or flight reactions are immediate, automatic and instinctive responses to fear. Understanding them a little might help you make sense of your experiences and feelings.
From the Old English fægnian, meaning “rejoice, exult, be glad,” fawning can be both an adjective and a noun form of the verb fawn. Fawning people are often trying to win favor with the person being flattered, and it sometimes comes off as sucking up.
(transitive) To praise excessively in order to get a favor.
Definitions of fawner. someone who humbles himself as a sign of respect; who behaves as if he had no self-respect. synonyms: apple polisher, bootlicker, groveler, groveller, truckler. type of: crawler, lackey, sycophant, toady. a person who tries to please someone in order to gain a personal advantage.