Fawn Response: The Trauma Survival Pattern That’s Mistaken for Kindness

Fawn Response: The Trauma Survival Pattern That’s Mistaken for Kindness

It often looks like compassion. It often gets praised as loyalty. But for many trauma survivors, the behavior known as the fawn response isn’t about kindness—it is about survival. The fawn response is the least recognized of the four primary trauma reactions: fight,...

The Thumb-Sucker

The Thumb-Sucker Fight or flight: the instinctive physiological response to a threatening situation, which readies one either to resist forcibly or to run away. **Please be kind to yourself as you read** I thought I was safe. At four years old, I believed if I...