If you’re anything like me, you like to make your friends and family happy. When Aunt Mary starts ranting about politics at Thanksgiving, you rush to the kitchen to grab her favorite pumpkin pie, just to keep the peace. That’s normal. But if you’re a chronic people pleaser, that might be the result of childhood trauma. And we finally have more context on why people pleasers act the way they do: It’s called the fawn trauma response. If you find yourself constantly going above and beyond for everyone and feeling guilty when you don’t, you need to read this. I spoke to trauma therapist Janet Bayramyan for more information on how to cope if you relate to some of the signs of the fawn trauma response below.
Calling All People Pleasers: Here’s Everything You Need to Know About Fawn Trauma Response, According to a Therapist
How do you respond to threats or danger?
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Published May 7, 2024
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Meet the Expert
Janet Bayramyan, LCSW, is a certified EMDR trauma therapist at Road to Wellness. She has more than eight years of experience as a trauma therapist and is licensed in California, Florida, South Carolina, Texas, Connecticut and North Carolina. She has worked with individuals with a history of trauma and addictions, couples facing relationship challenges and individuals experiencing significant life transitions. Bayramyan approaches therapy from a supportive and strengths-based perspective, always considering one’s strengths, cultural background and identity.
What Exactly Is the Fawn Trauma Response?
Per Bayramyan, the fawn trauma response is one of the four responses to how we respond to threat or danger (fight, flight, freeze or fawn). “The fawn response involves doing what we can to placate the situation, person or threat in order to reduce harm or danger,” she tells me. According to Psychology Today, the fawn trauma response is a type of coping mechanism some people use to avoid conflict. When growing up in an abusive environment, some people become aggressive (fight), others run away (flight) and others are unable to make a decision (freeze). Those with the fawn trauma response try to get ahead of the problem by rushing to please the abuser in order to avoid conflict. That means they agree with everything that’s being said, do things they know will get approval and set aside their personal feelings in order to avoid abuse. Eventually, this can become a normal behavioral pattern that gets carried into adulthood.
What Does the Fawn Response Look Like? What Are Some Examples of Fawning Behavior?
Bayramyan explains that fawning behavior can include:
- Being overly submissive and compliant
- People-pleasing behaviors
- A strong desire to avoid conflict
- Over apologizing
- Ignoring our own personal boundaries
- Excessive agreeableness
- Assuming responsibility for the harm being done
What Kind of Trauma Can Cause Fawning?
“Sometimes cultural expectations can cause fawning,” Bayramyan tells me. “For example, in cultures that require girls and women to be more ‘ladylike’ or submissive, women may learn that they have to be agreeable in order to make others happy and fit in.” Certain types of childhood abuse can also cause the fawn response, she says, if the child learned that it was better for their survival to placate their abuser. “Experiencing chronic bullying or harassment can lead individuals to develop fawning behaviors as a way to avoid further victimization and gain acceptance from peers.” Additionally, traumatic experiences like accidents, natural disasters or witnessing violence can lead one to adopt fawning behaviors as a way to navigate threatening situations and ensure safety or survival.
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6 Ways to Cope with the Fawn Trauma Response
- Learn to Set Boundaries. One of the biggest issues for people with fawn trauma response is that they don’t really know how to set boundaries. And when your default is to appease everyone around you, it can be hard to set a hard line without feeling guilty. Start small. Someone mispronounces your name? Correct them. Your friends are pressuring you to go to happy hour? Say no. Eventually, those small wins will give you the confidence to tackle bigger issues.
- Learn to *Enforce* Those Boundaries. “This involves identifying personal limits, communicating them assertively and being willing to say no when necessary,” Bayramyan explains. “It's important to recognize that setting boundaries may initially feel uncomfortable or even bring up feelings of guilt, but it is an important step in reclaiming your autonomy and self-respect.”
- Develop Self-Awareness and Mindfulness. This can help you recognize when you’re engaging in fawning behaviors and understand the underlying emotions and triggers. Here are five ways to incorporate mindfulness into your day-to-day routine.
- Practice Delegating. Part of the fawn trauma response is feeling like you have to handle every task and spearhead every project in order to be a valuable employee at work. At family gatherings, you’ll also probably feel a lot of pressure to cater to everyone else’s needs (especially if this is what you’ve always done in the past and your brother is expecting you to make his favorite turkey meatballs from scratch). But when you already have a ton of stuff on your plate, taking on more can easily lead to burnout. Remember, you’re allowed to ask for help and delegate some of those tasks. It’s even OK to deliver less than you’ve promised once in a while. You’ll still be a great co-worker, friend and sister. Promise.
- Stop Overexplaining. When you’re first learning to set boundaries for yourself, the natural inclination is to apologize and overcompensate in order to make sure everyone knows you aren’t blowing them off. ‘No’ is a complete sentence.” And you don’t need to explain yourself further than that.
- Seek Professional Therapy or Join a Support Group. Bayramyan says that both one-on-one therapy and support groups can provide a safe space for folks to explore their experiences, learn coping strategies and receive validation and support from others who have experienced similar things. “Therapists trained in trauma-informed approaches, such as EMDR, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) or somatic experiencing, can help individuals process past traumas and develop healthier coping mechanisms,” she adds.
