08/25/2021
Let’s Discuss: Freeze and Fawn
In human and animal behavior, experts have suggested several alternative responses to fight and flight when an individual’s sympathetic nervous system is activated by a perceived danger. The ones I have read about include freeze, flock, fawn, flood, flop, friend, fool around, faint, fatigue, feed, and fornicate. Let’s look at freeze and fawn. Freezing has been well documented in both humans and animals as a fear response. And freezing is clearly neither fight nor flight. It is the absence of movement toward or away from the stimulus. So I think freezing definitely earns its own spot in the list of responses. So now we have, “fight, flight or freeze.” These three are innate responses. They are instinctual, automatic, coded into human and animal DNA. What about fawning? In human behavior, fawning is considered a learned response to stress. The term was first presented by Pete Walker, a licensed psychotherapist and childhood-trauma survivor. A good description of fawning in humans is “people pleasing.”
Walker describes it this way:
“Fawn types seek safety by merging with the wishes, needs and demands of others. They act as if they unconsciously believe that the price of admission to any relationship is the forfeiture of all their needs, rights, preferences and boundaries.”
This seems to describe fawning in humans as a response to chronic stress. And the fawning itself seems to become chronic, like a default way of interacting with other people. I can also imagine fawning in humans as a response to acute stress. Like when a person complies with someone who is threatening them. If a person points a gun at you and says to lie down on the ground, you could try to tackle them (fight), run away (flight), stand motionless (freeze) or get down on the ground (fawn). So in humans fawn is distinctly different from the other three responses and, therefore, deserves it’s own spot in the list of stress responses.
Do animals fawn? My clients mostly have dogs and cats. There is no scientific reason to believe that dogs and cats “seek safety by merging with the wishes, needs and demands of others.” This is a human-centric description. If dogs and cats engage in fawning, what would that look like? Does tolerance for unpleasant and scary things like veterinary care count as fawning or freezing? What about appeasement behaviors/calming signals or submissive behaviors given between members of the same species? What about those signals expressed by a pet toward a human? What about the dog who is nervous about interacting with a human, rolls onto her back, shows her belly, and then snaps at the human’s hand that comes in for a belly rub? Can you think of any possible examples of fawning in cats?
Which of these expressions indicate an innate fawning response and which learned? Which are responses to chronic stress and which to acute? I can see several possibilities. Tell me your thoughts.
https://www.yahoo.com/now/fawning-fourth-trauma-response-dont-202416242.html
pete-walker.com
When our brains perceive a threat in our environment, we automatically go into one of four stress response modes -- fight, flight, freeze and fawn. While most of us know the definitions of the first three, not all of us are familiar with the "fawn" response.
