Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves—and How to Find Our Way Back, by Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Do you fawn? Fawning is one of the four stress responses: fight, flight, freeze and fawn. Like the first three stress responses, fawning occurs in response to a threat. That distinguishes it from people-pleasing and co-dependence, though there is some overlap. In Dr. Clayton’s case, as she notes in her book, the threat was a sexually inappropriate step-father.
What do fawners do when under stress? They accommodate. They manipulate. They cajole the causer of stress to believe that they are on their side, they’ll get no resistance from us, in the hope that the aggressor will relax their jaws and let us go on our way.
Safety may be achieved but the cost? Fawning can become a way of life that obscures our authentic selves. What to do? Read the book to find some useful and creative suggestions. Highly recommended.
Review by CHS Clinical Director, Robert Mendelsohn, LMFT, CSAT-S
