Most people think of people-pleasing as a harmless habit, but fawning is something entirely different — a trauma response so overlooked and misunderstood that most people don’t even realize they’re ...

In the quiet corners of trauma, there lies a response often misinterpreted, overlooked, or dismissed as mere "people-pleasing." It’s not always fight or flight. It’s not even freeze mode. Sometimes, ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Mark Travers writes about the world of psychology. When you grow up in unpredictable environments or experience something ...

Fawning is a survival mechanism that develops in response to trauma—a fourth response alongside the better-known fight, flight, and freeze reactions. Psychotherapist Pete Walker defines fawning as “a ...

Fight or flight are not the only common responses to a traumatic event. I addressed this a bit in a column published on November 22, 2022 explaining that some authors describe “4 F’s”: fight, flight, ...