? may i ask what fawn response is?
It's part of our stress and arousal responses as in the Fight/Flight Response. I’ll put some excerpts from our articles on these topics here:
Informational Article: Fight, Flight, Freeze & Fawn
We’ve all heard of the “Fight or Flight Response”. When looking at the physiology this is the sympathetic nervous system response. The sympathetic nervous system is part of the autonomic nervous system, the involuntary functions of the nervous system. It is the way our bodies handle input that we read as fighting and/or a threat.
The spinal column starts the process sending the starting signals. Then amygdala recognizes the threat and sends to the hypothalamus which triggers the making of hormones in the pituitary gland. The main hormone involved is Adrenaline, Cortisol & Norepinephrine.
All four responses are essentially involuntary, though the ability to soothe them can be managed. Which one we use is a combination of three main factors. The first is what is advantageous in the situation, for example, a person around your size you might be able to fight while a fire it’s less to just run away from. The second major factor is our own genetics/nature, as kids, we are generally predisposed to different responses. Last main response is as adolescents and adults what did we normally do as kids, we tend to go back on what “worked” as a kid, trauma tends to make the response more ingrained and harder to be able to adapt.
Fawn also called the “please”, “feign” or “submit” response. This is essentially just doing what the assaulter or abuser wants you to do. This isn’t a response that happens with many kinds of stimuli like an earthquake or fire. It only happens when someone is being assaulted or abused. It is often the victim trying to be exactly what the abuser wants them to be. It is a survival response like the other three, it’s an attempt to avoid being hurt and to try and often get affection/love from the abuser. The Fawn response is pretty mostly seen in children as this response is not seen in most adults due to the way the brain has developed and the social development. Though a version of this can be seen in long term abuse of adults in domestic violence situations.
This can happen with things like being kidnapped or bank robberies but is super common with abuse victims. Children and long term victimization often experience some degree of a Fawn response. With long term abuse, a victim may have a Fight or Flight Response at first but if the assault continues the victim may end up falling into this later.
Trauma bonding & grooming plays a factor in this as the abuser creates feelings of love and connection. If the abuser is a parent or other family member victims generally really want to please and be loved. Gaslighting and in general being taught something is “normal”. Like I said above genetics/natural inclinations also do factor into this.
Connection to arousal states:
Informational Article: Hyperarousal & Hypoarousal
Hyper and hypoarousal are the two dysregulated states of the autonomic nervous system. These states are connected to the Fight-Flight-Freeze-Fawn/Fold response. “Fight & Flight” are states of hyperarousal, “Freeze” is a split response and “Fawn/Fold” is a state of hypoarousal.
Arousal refers to the level of stress and type of activity our central nervous system is under. It describes the way these reactions affect our physiological states, affective state, social function and neurological function.
Hyperarousal is an extreme state of stress that is congruous with the Fight or Flight response and some aspects of Freeze. Our brain-body system is running on overdrive, and we are seeking out active ways to handle our situation. Hypoarousal is the opposite, our brain-body system is running low, and we experience a level of a shutdown. This is connected to the fawn/fold responses.
When looking at trauma this is important to understand as arousal and nervous dysregulation is a symptom of (C)PTSD and key to how trauma affects us in our lives. Childhood trauma especially can leave people with an inability to healthily shift between arousal states. Healthy arousal levels are important in maintaining physical and psychological health.
When we cannot regulate our nervous system we are locked in either hyper or hypoarousal. This leaves us with persistent stress and when presented with stressful stimulation we cannot process it. It also leaves us open to re-traumatization when higher stressors are present.
The Next Model follows a 1-7 labelling process and describes the patterns of how we shift between them. It can also help us understand how trauma and extreme stress are needed for the dissociative states. This model also breaks down the fight-flight-freeze-fold/fawn states related to more general arousal states.
Arrest & Alert: Associated with curiosity. A state of arousal where our thoughts can wonder if we are open and able to think clearly but aren’t focused.
Stiffen & Orient: Associated with focused attention, interest and preparedness.
Asses: Associated with intense interest, friendliness or repulsion.
Approach or avoid: Associated with pleasure and displeasure. When here we get that instinctual need to either involve yourself in an experience or to leave. This is the first time we see a split in the responses to stress. Our nervous system acts on these instincts. We can start to have involuntary movement, but there is still involvement of the higher brain and control.
Fight-or-Flight: This is where we start to experience intense activation of our nervous system and when we hit this point on the continuum we are in a survival state. Fight-or-Flight leaves us in a state of fear or anger.
Freeze: We experience this generally when Fight-or-Flight is not effective and that pattern is thwarted. When we freeze our emotional state is usually one of terror to the point our body locks up.
Fold/Fawn & collapse: Our nervous system collapses, and we are feeling helpless to escape a threat.
*note depending on stimuli that are acting as a stressor you may not truly experience fight-flight and automatically freeze or if you’ve experienced trauma that left you dissociated you might automatically fawn/fold.
5-7 are the emergency survival states and our implicit procedural memories become activated and the conscious thoughts take a back seat to subconscious involuntary processes. We move from awareness of danger and fear to outright terror and ending with the most basic and last-ditch survival mode of collapse.
Specific Autonomic Nervous System Reactions.
Phase 5: The fight-flight response is associated with the sympathetic nervous system and the endocrine system, specifically adrenal glands. This arousal level gets us ready to mobilize and meet the threat. Our muscles get ready to move and our minds try to figure out how to leave or fight the threat. Because our body is trying to escape physically and survive. Our body suspends the digestive system and prioritizes activation of the cardio-pulmonary system muscular activation. Our mind tries to take in our environment via our sensory systems (sound, sight, etc) and plan how best to get away from or stop the threat. Other thought processes shut down and the memory encoding system is affected. This is a hyperarousal state
If the threat is not resolved, and we have not escaped, we move out of phase 5 into phase 6, freeze. When we get here our sympathetic nervous system intensifies the hormone and neurotransmitter cascade. This level of activation keeps the body on high alert, but because we can’t fight or escape, our muscles clam up and our brain stops trying to take in our environment or plan an escape. We lose our ability to react. The memory encoding worsens and dissociation starts to intensify. Phase 6 is an overlap of hyper & hypoarousal.
If we start to believe we are in mortal danger or the threat is continuous and inescapable we move into phase 7: fawn and fold. Dissociation becomes extreme and everything starts to collapse including our; metabolism, memory, respiration, circulation, digestion and we become exhausted. We can either fold into ourselves enough that we might stay frozen or we may become hyper-compliant to the person who is hurting us or the activities we are forced to do. Implicit memories are strong here. The key to phase 7 is our minds and bodies have ceased trying to process the world outside and suspend some functions of homeostasis.
The shutdown process is controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system via the vagus nerve. The parasympathetic response is more intense than normal and due to the situation, the sympathetic response has not been able to ebb naturally. This can leave our internal feelings and physiological reactions disconnected and contradictory inside of us.
Phase 7 is the state of trauma and causes most of the long term damage. States 5 & 6 are part of trauma and will continue to be experienced but, stage 7 will always leave us traumatized. Stage 7 is the essence of trauma, the inability to move out of stress and helplessness. It is also the state that facilitates the fragmentation of self as it’s the strongest dissociative response and the split of the physiological process.
