What is the Fawn Response?
By Abigail Willie
Content Note: This post discusses trauma responses - specifically the fawn response and how it relates to consent and boundaries. If this topic is sensitive for you, please take gentle care while reading, and know that you have the option to pause or stop reading at any point.
Traumatic experiences can impact someone’s ability to set boundaries. A survivor might feel disconnected, or like their boundaries don’t matter.
The fawn response is a survival strategy. It occurs when someone appeases people as a way to avoid conflict or danger when traditional fight/flight/freeze responses are not safe. This might cause a person to prioritize others’ needs over their own to feel safer. Fawning reduces the perceived threat by becoming more agreeable or non-threatening to the person or thing causing it.
In conversations about consent, it is important to acknowledge the fawn response. This highlights the meaning of clear, informed, and enthusiastic consent - while someone might say “yes” or initiate intimacy, we don’t always know what’s motivating that “yes.”
What Does It Look Like?
Fawning can cause someone to dismiss their own comfort and needs, especially when it has helped them stay safe before. Sometimes survivors don’t realize they are fawning - it can feel automatic, as they might be used to disconnecting to protect themselves. It can look like:
Always agreeing, avoiding conflict
Over-apologizing
Initiating physical or emotional intimacy to keep the peace
Feeling guilty or anxious when setting boundaries
Safety and Expanding Beyond Fawning
Fawning is a survival skill that allows survivors to create safety in an otherwise unsafe environment. Sometimes, when it feels safe, it can feel fulfilling to gently explore different responses. Finding new ways of responding to our circumstances can create more opportunities to connect with our needs and boundaries.
In Toronto, there are many trauma-informed psychotherapy clinics that are well-versed in trauma responses, including fawning. Beaches Therapy Group and New Moon Psychotherapy specifically explain and discuss trauma responses on their platforms. These clinics and many others in the GTA can provide a safe space for growth and healing of survivors.
Learning to pause and check in with our comfort and boundaries takes time and practice. Every step you take towards honouring your safety and creating space for healing can happen at your own pace.