By Debra Cohen-Melamed, LCSW, CCTP, TF-CBT, CPDTP
In Part 1, we explored how the Fight response turns fear into control. In Part 2, we saw how Flight becomes motion as a way to escape emotional overwhelm. And in Part 3, we looked at how Freeze shuts the body down when nothing else feels possible. But there’s one final trauma response—often overlooked because it looks so polite, helpful, and agreeable.
As a trauma therapist, I’ve seen countless clients who were praised for being “mature for their age,” “the peacekeeper,” or “so easy to get along with.” But behind that kindness is often something deeper: fear.
The Fawn response is not about connection—it’s about survival through appeasement. In other words, “If I keep you happy, maybe I’ll stay safe.”
What Is the Fawn Response?
Fawning is a trauma pattern rooted in the nervous system’s attempt to avoid conflict, rejection, or abandonment. When fighting, fleeing, or freezing aren’t viable options, many nervous systems turn toward people-pleasing as a last-resort strategy. It’s not about being “too nice.” It’s about staying alive.
This response often forms in children raised by unpredictable, emotionally volatile, or narcissistic caregivers. Over time, they learn to suppress their own needs, feelings, and identity in order to soothe others and reduce risk.
How the Fawn Response Shows Up in Real Life
In Kids
- Over-apologizing or blaming themselves
- Acting like a “little adult” (emotional caretaking)
- Constantly seeking praise or reassurance
- Avoiding conflict, even when harmed
Stacey (8) always helps clean up in session, compliments her therapist, and agrees with everything said. Her parents frequently argue at home. When asked how she feels during their fights, she says, “I just try to make everyone happy.” Stacey has learned that safety comes from pleasing others—even if it means ignoring herself.
In Teens
- Fear of saying “no” to peers or adults
- Identity confusion (“I don’t know what I like”)
- Staying in toxic friendships or relationships
- Self-sacrifice to avoid disappointment or rejection
Peter (17) is a model student. He never breaks rules, always smiles. But in therapy, he shares that he feels invisible in his friend group and can’t express what he really thinks. His father’s unpredictable anger shaped his belief that perfection equals protection. His Fawn response hides in his achievements—and in his silence.
In Adults
- Chronic people-pleasing, even at personal cost
- Difficulty setting or keeping boundaries
- Over-functioning in relationships (fixing, caretaking)
- Shame for having needs, anger, or desires
Rachel (33) is exhausted. She’s the go-to person at work, in her family, and in her marriage. But when asked what she wants, she freezes. “I don’t know who I am without helping others,” she says. Rachel grew up parenting her emotionally immature mother. Her nervous system learned: Being useful is how I stay safe.
Clinical Connections and Diagnostic Overlaps
Fawn responses often hide in plain sight—disguised as high-functioning behavior or “niceness.” But beneath the surface, they can reflect deep trauma adaptations. Fawning can mimic or overlap with:
- Codependency: emotional over-involvement and a lack of boundaries
- Relational enmeshment: loss of personal identity in close relationships
- Borderline Personality Disorder (traits): identity confusion, fear of abandonment, chronic self-sacrifice
- Complex PTSD: hyper-attunement to others’ moods, emotional suppression, chronic guilt
- High-functioning anxiety or depression: internalized shame masked by productivity or perfectionism
Clients with Fawn patterns often appear calm, accommodating, or compliant—but their internal world may be filled with fear, resentment, and emotional invisibility.
Therapy with the Fawn Response
Fawn-oriented clients are often attuned to everyone except themselves. Therapy should center on helping them reconnect with their voice, boundaries, and internal worth—without needing to earn love through self-erasure.
Here’s what helps:
- Assertiveness Training: Practice expressing wants, needs, and boundaries without guilt.
- Parts Work (IFS): Validate the “pleaser” part while helping adult parts reclaim autonomy.
- Inner Child Reparenting: Offer compassion to the child who learned love had to be earned through compliance.
- Boundary Mapping: Use role-play, journaling, or visual tools to explore what safety and self-expression actually look like.
- For children: child-led play, praise for independent choices, and consistent emotional boundaries help undo the belief that love must be earned by shrinking.
Takeaway for Clinicians and Survivors
If you’ve spent your life smoothing things over, anticipating others’ needs, or being the “easy one,” you may have been Fawning—not thriving.
What looked like kindness may have been protection. What looked like empathy may have been fear. But now, you get to choose something new.
You are allowed to say no.
You are allowed to want more.
You are allowed to take up space—not just in relationships, but in your own life.
Final Reflection: Beyond the Four Fs
Understanding the Four Trauma Responses—Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn—helps us shift the question from “What’s wrong with me?” to “What did I need to do to survive?”
These responses were protective patterns—adaptations developed in the face of fear, unpredictability, or pain. They helped you survive when you had limited choices. But survival mode isn’t meant to last forever.
Healing doesn’t mean rejecting the parts of you that coped. It means expanding your capacity to respond from safety, self-awareness, and choice.
You are not broken.
You adapted.
And now, you get to heal—and live—fully, freely, and from a place that finally includes you.
Missed the earlier parts? Catch up below:
[Fight – When Survival Looks Like Control] [Flight – When Busyness Becomes a Hiding Place] [Freeze – When Numbness Becomes a Way of Life]
