(5 minutes read time)
Susan Jeffers, Ph.D. (1938–2012), best known for her powerful book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, spoke to something many of us sense deep down but struggle to live out. For those trapped in the fawn response—those who’ve learned to survive by staying small, agreeable, and invisible—her words aren’t just inspiring. They’re a lifeline. Because when people-pleasing has become your armour, choosing to feel the fear and still stand in your truth isn’t just brave… it’s everything. It’s how you begin to reclaim your life.
Understanding the Fawn Response
When we talk about trauma responses, most people are familiar with fight, flight, and freeze. But there’s a fourth response that’s just as important: fawn.
The fawn response is when your nervous system tries to stay safe by pleasing others. It’s not about fearfully running away (flight) or shutting down (freeze); it’s about trying to prevent danger by being overly accommodating, agreeable, or helpful.
Where Does It Come From?
Fawning often develops in early life, especially in relationships where love, safety, or acceptance felt conditional. If a child grows up in an unpredictable, critical, or unsafe environment, they may learn that the best way to avoid conflict or harm is to:
- Be “good” or invisible
- Meet everyone else’s needs
- Avoid expressing anger or disagreement
- Keep the peace at all costs
This becomes wired into the nervous system as a survival pattern.
Signs of the Fawn Response:
- Difficulty saying “no” or setting boundaries
- People-pleasing and approval-seeking
- Putting others’ needs above your own
- Feeling responsible for other people’s emotions
- Avoiding conflict, even when it means self-sacrifice
- Feeling guilty when prioritising yourself
Dissociation and burn out
Fawn responses often go unnoticed because they’re rewarded by society—being kind, selfless, and flexible can be seen as strengths. But when those behaviours are driven by fear or past trauma, they can become exhausting and disconnecting.
Informed by the work of Pete Walker, this article explores the often-overlooked fawn response as a core survival strategy in trauma. Walker identifies fawning as a response that “bypasses the fight, flight and freeze responses” and instead relies on people-pleasing and appeasement to gain safety—particularly in emotionally neglectful or unsafe early environments. As he explains, “fawn types seek safety by merging with the wishes, needs and demands of others,” often at the cost of their own needs, identity, and boundaries.
Over time, this chronic self-abandonment can lead to deep burnout, as individuals continually override their inner signals in order to maintain connection or avoid conflict. The nervous system remains on high alert, scanning for how to keep others happy, while personal needs are suppressed or ignored—resulting in emotional exhaustion, resentment, and a loss of self.
If I don’t people-please, who am I?
For many people I work with, the idea of not fawning—of saying no, setting boundaries, or expressing authentic thoughts and feelings—can be terrifying. Beneath the surface is often a deep, unconscious belief that who they are is not safe or acceptable, Will people like me? Am I enough? Especially if their early environment taught them that love and approval were conditional. If fawning was the strategy that kept them connected and protected, then letting it go can feel like risking abandonment or rejection. The fear isn’t just about disappointing others—it’s about the underlying terror that if they stop pleasing, the “real” them will be exposed and deemed unworthy. In trauma recovery, learning to stop fawning isn’t just about behaviour change; it’s about slowly, gently unlearning the belief that authenticity is dangerous, and relearning that being true to oneself can be safe, welcome, and enough.
How trauma counselling can help
Together we can look at your people-pleasing behaviour today and we can find out what that is about. We can look at early years relationships when you decided you had to be the sweetest, kindest child and the importance of upholding that reputation all the way through childhood and how it is causing you problems today in daily life. You can decide if it is all you or a trapped part of you that is still making decisions.
You can begin to comfort the child part of you, provide the nurturing he/she needed as an infant and be the adult in your life today. You can then be free to implement the boundaries needed for healthy relationships and to feel safe in the world. You will not need to use food, alcohol, drugs or put pressure on body image, overspending on clothes and items to create a you, you believe will please the external world.
Understanding this pattern is essential in trauma work, as it reframes burnout not as weakness, but as the cost of a survival strategy that once kept someone safe.
Are you ready to talk?
I offer a low-cost confidential service. I offer space to speak, find your voice, be really heard and validated. I am a trained professional counsellor who specialises in anxiety and trauma. Make an appointment to meet me and tell me what you want from counselling. See if you feel comfortable. The first session is over Zoom for both of our safety and then you can do sessions over Zoom from your own home or in person in mine, in my safe, comfortable therapy room.
Book your appointment today
Click here and book a free initial consultation with me today. Read what people are saying about working with me in counselling here. I hold a private, confidential space for you. I’m looking forward to meeting you and hearing you very soon. Best wishes, Karen.
Disclaimer: I am a UK qualified person centred counsellor specialising in anxiety and trauma within the context of counselling. I write from my experiences and from my client work in counselling. My work is dependent on the therapeutic relationship and the meeting of two minds. It is a humbling experience and that is all part of the healing process that I witness every day. It is the best job in the world. This is not an emergency service. If you need to speak to someone urgently outside of my sessions, please call the Samaritans on 116 123 (24/7 confidential helpline in the UK).