You’ve probably heard of the fight-or-flight response. Put simply, it’s a phrase used to describe two ways a person might react to stress. As the words imply, they may sometimes flee the situation, and other times, they may opt to stand their ground. That said, there’s also a response that combines aspects of both. In the freeze response, you don’t leave the scene, but you also do not fight. You basically remain in place but in a state of dissociation—unable to do much of anything.
But guess what? There’s a fourth possible way to react to trauma. It’s called the fawn response, and it is an active survival skill.
Think of the Fawn Response as a Form of People-Pleasing
When trauma is complex and chronic, you may feel there is no escape. People-pleasing can be healthy when it arises from a place of safety, trust, and kindness. But if you are being agreeable out of fear, there’s a strong likelihood that trauma is present. You might be resorting to compliance in the hope it will reduce the amount of abuse you face. This is a textbook example of the fawn response in action.
A Few Common Signs of the Fawn Response
- Emotional Numbness: You’re so busy working 24/7 to deflect attention away from yourself that you grow disconnected from what you actually feel. Your focus is on soothing the emotions of others. As a result, your own feelings feel inaccessible.
- Intellectual Numbness: Besides suppressing your emotions, you’re also compromising your ideas and opinions. It doesn’t feel safe to voice preferences, so you go along to get along. This brings up feelings of guilt, resentment, loneliness, and confusion. Such emotions, in turn, feel scary and are promptly pushed down.
- Outbursts: The two signs described above lay the foundation for the unexpected release of thoughts and emotions. Even if such outbursts feel dangerous, they can be impossible to prevent when you’re in the fawn response.
Addressing the Fawn Response in Trauma Therapy
There’s trauma, and there’s complex trauma. The briefest differentiation is that trauma relates to enduring or witnessing a single event and may result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Complex trauma is a term used to define ongoing, relentless trauma, e.g., any type of chronic abuse. The outcome of complex trauma is often complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD).
Since the fawn response is typically associated with C-PTSD, it’s crucial that your therapist identifies its presence. C-PTSD, as you might imagine, requires a specific type of treatment plan. Hence, recognizing the fawn response can be a giant step toward recovery. Concurrently, there are important self-help steps you can take to complement your treatment in a healthy manner.
How to Challenge the Fawn Response
- Practice Saying “No”: You can be a good person yet still say “no” when you mean “no.” Sometimes, the person you need to please is yourself.
- Practice Self-Care: Creating and sticking with a daily self-care regimen is a powerful way to remind yourself that you deserve the best. In the process, you rebuild your physical strength, emotional resilience, and self-esteem.
- Practice Mindfulness: To start identifying your people-pleasing/fawn response tendencies, take up mindfulness practice. Root yourself in the present moment via techniques like meditation, breathing exercises, and more.
Complex Trauma Recovery is Not a Solo Act
When something is called complex, it’s a good indication that asking for help from a professional is crucial. Connecting with a trauma-informed therapist can be the first big step in reclaiming agency on a journey of healing. If the information in this post resonates with you, we invite you to reach out to Onyx to learn more about how our trained and skilled therapists can support you to begin that journey.
