Fight flight freeze fawn cptsd8/29/2023 ![]() ![]() Fawn, according to Webster’s, means: “to act servilely cringe and flatter”, and I believe it is this response that is at the core of many codependents’ behavior. Many trauma victims over time develop an ability to use varying combinations of these responses depending on the nature of the triggering circumstances.Ī fourth type of triggered response can be seen in many codependents.(Codependency is defined here as the inability to express rights, needs and boundaries in relationship it is a disorder of assertiveness that causes the individual to attract and accept exploitation, abuse and/or neglect.) I have named it the fawn response.the fourth ‘f’ in the fight/flight/ freeze/fawn repertoire of instinctive responses to trauma. Examples of this are as follows: a fight response has been triggered when the individual suddenly responds aggressively to someone/thing that frightens her a flight response has been triggered when she responds to a perceived threat with a intense urge to flee, or symbolically, with a sudden launching into obsessive/compulsive activity (the effort to outdistance fearful internal experience) a freeze response has been triggered when she suddenly numbs out into dissociation, escaping anxiety via daydreaming, oversleeping, getting lost in TV or some other form of “spacing out”. Sometimes a current event can have only the vaguest resemblance to a past traumatic situation and this can be enough to trigger the psyche’s hard-wiring for a fight, flight, or freeze response. I help them understand that their extreme anxiety responses to apparently innocuous circumstances are often emotional flashbacks to earlier traumatic events. In my work with victims of childhood trauma (I include here those who on a regular basis were verbally and emotionally abused at the dinner table), I use psychoeducation to help them understand the ramifications of their childhood-derived Complex PTSD (see Judith Herman’s enlightening Trauma and Recovery). ![]() CODEPENDENCY, TRAUMA, & THE FAWN RESPONSE BY PETE WALKER ![]()
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