You’ve probably heard of fight, flight, and even the freeze response to trauma.
But there are some newer defense responses – ones that experts have only recently begun to name and understand – that are critical to our clinical work.
One of those defense responses is “please and appease.” You may have also heard expert practitioners call this the fawn response to trauma.
But because researchers and experts are still learning about this response, there have been some misconceptions about it.
In the video below, Stephen Porges, PhD shares one common misconception about patients who “please and appease.”
Stephen will also explain how polyvagal theory can better inform how you work with this trauma response – and points out a well-intentioned approach that might actually do harm to these patients.
Have a look.
So, to me please and appease is really this miraculous synergism of the social engagement system, which is what we use to cue others that we are connected, but literally putting it into a more voluntary mode, and with another underlying physiology, which had hopefulness, still had a desire to live, had a sufficient amount of energy. So it was, in a sense, relatively well-regulated.
So, appeasement comes out of a very resilient nervous system. It’s not available to everyone who is in, let’s say, these difficult situations. So, when you read the books of or meet the people who have done these things, survived it, you’re basically in awe of how their body enabled them to function under those situations.
So if we start to say that we treat people who have an appeasement issue by telling them to be assertive, we might be missing the dynamics of the relationship and of the history of relationships that the client has gone through. And we may be missing the, in a sense, valiant attempt that the client’s nervous system has made which enabled them to navigate this very complex world. Because appeasement for many, if they don’t appease, there’s injury on the other side of the equation. And not just verbal abuse – there’s injury, physical injury. Verbal abuse could be enough, but I’m saying physical injury as well.”
The more we learn about emerging defense responses to trauma – like the “please and appease” (or fawn) response – the better equipped we can be to work with them.
If you’re looking for more ways to more skillfully work with this trauma response, as well as many others, you can get some of the top strategies in our Advanced Master Program on the Treatment of Trauma.
In this program, you’ll hear more from Stephen Porges, PhD, along with Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Pat Ogden, PhD; Peter Levine, PhD, Thema Bryant-Davis, PhD, and other leading experts in the field. Just click here.
Now we’d like to hear from you. How might you use Stephen’s ideas when working with patients who please and appease in response to trauma? Please leave a comment below to let us know.
If you found this helpful, here are a few more resources you might be interested in:
A Mistake Practitioners Might Make When Their Patient Is Stuck in the “Attach/Cry-for-Help” Response
How the Nervous System Responds to Trauma
[Infographic] – Four Key Ways Collapse/Submit Can Present in a Client
What if a client is really in a dangerous situation and pleasing & appeasing is the only safe response ? do we just let them be ?
I recently realized, that I was full of shame. I’ve been trying to dig deep to where it came from, after also realizing, last night, that I’ve been in the fawn responses since as long as I can remember. my childhood was filled with fear of physical or emotional abuse, and shame on a daily basis. I’ve never known who I was, what I enjoy. I clearly need therapy, but I physically can not speak about myself with out crying and being ashamed that I can’t communicate. so I shut down…it’s a horrible cycle I want to break
Wondering what neurochemical response happens with please and appease – are endorphins released like freeze response? Also kinda curious about the neurochemical composition of the abuser – is it true that opposition/hate releases dopamine?
Very interesting question – I as well would like to know what actually happens to still endorse ‘please and appease’ after 30+ years of marriage… My husband grew up with an alcoholic father who screamed and shouted and of course shamed a wife and child in public. We cannot seem to sort out any issues as my husband would expose either a ‘please and appease’ strategy or a ‘victim’ strategy.
I am a counsellor and tends to approach problems head on…
Interested in a disscussion on how this applies to attachment specifically healer / client relationships.
A lot of abuse of power in those relationships currently.
As I began to reset after leaving an abusive 10-year marriage and the drama that continued until after my divorce I began to reflect on and question myself. Holding him responsible for his behavior led me to look at my own over those years. I realized that in the face of his abuse my nervous system reverted back to the survival strategies I had used in my childhood. I didn’t have words for that and now I do. I am also in awe that my body, our bodies, has these incredible strategies that help in dire circumstances. As empowered as I have felt since those days long ago, this has deepened my gratitude for how I’m made and my appreciation for this body I inhabit. I think this will help those who felt their bodies betrayed them to realize it was their bodies that saved them from the betrayal of those whose care they deserved.
Prior to an arbitration, my union lawyers reviewed our stance. They would argue my actions were not a breach. I was highly anxious entering that arbitration. I had been wrongfully terminated on accusations of a breach of patient records. We had the evidence my actions were not but rather this was a continuation of bullying, slander of my job performance, by the manager.
At the arbitration I sat down and then my union lawyers flipped the script. I went into shock. When I tried to speak up, all three of my legal counsel shut me down. I was instructed to be quiet and let the union lawyers handle it.
My 18 year career was at stake. I couldn’t anger them. I needed them to negotiate on my behalf for the best possible outcome. As an union member, my union has sole jurisdiction in terms of matters of employment. I cannot seek legal representation outside of my union. I was stuck.
I suffered a trauma response. I could not label my reaction. I just did whatever they said. I wanted them to believe me, to trust me that I was correct. I ended up signing an agreement that was just God-awful. Once removed from the situation and driving home, I seemingly came to my senses and suffered another shock, “What happened?!”
I am grateful for this research. I couldn’t explain what happened to me that day. I now have some understanding. I believe I suffered a “collapse and submit response” intertwined with a “please and appease.” Understanding this has been a helpful step in my recovery from Complex PTSD.
I know exactly what you are describing, my experience was similar but with a midwife and my last child’s birth. You put it into words better than I have been able. Thank you.
When say a Psychiatrist or Psychologist uses the concept of appeasement in a control situation which harms the client instead of trying to build up false trust for survival; just how dangerous can it become to deeping mental illness when the client doesn’t understand the concept or the consequences?
In all relationships it is damaging the status quo to work with one part only. There needs to be a balance, or the consequences can indeed be dangerous. There is a very fine line of difference between apeasement and submission. I am curious if Steven Porges could comment on this.
I work with women who fawn continually to survive their relationship with their abusive partners. These women have mastered the fawn to not only protect themselves but their children.
Thanks for this point of view which points out the awareness that what looks like capitulation may well be seen as an awareness of the need to please until one can garner skills for survival or be in a safer place to attempt it. It is an instinctive survival mode and who comes to mind are children and adolescents in a toxic home atmosphere. As said, a skill not a surrender. S. Fields
After nearly 50 years treating trauma survivors I have to say 2 recent trainings have had the most impact on my practice. Stephen Porgess’ workshop on PolyVagal theory and an anxiety treatment that focused on neurochemisty of the brain. With these insights we can offer tools for our clients to recognize their experience without shame and evolve tools to reclaim their own power to impact their personal quality of life. Such exciting innovations! I may never retire
May I ask which “anxiety treatment” that focuses on neurochemistry of the brain you are speaking of? …..thank you
That is wonderfull. May you indeed never retire.
What is the anxiety treatment that focuses on the neurochemistry of the brain
I’ve seen a similar response in assault survivors – who often feel they have let themselves down. I have worked with them to understand that any acts that they may have had to survive the attack’ and then re-framed them as “acts of resistance” and survival despite the occurrence of the attack. We then look at how some of the “resistance acts” (verbal, emotional, physical) once kept them alive, but now are no longer needed and then explore ways to let them go.
Janet, MSW – Eastern Canada
Thanks for this insightful comment.
I cried
Seeing what may be possible help.. it’s so far out of reach…
I need to understand. I need to, despite having all the medical challenges.
Also, I am not a practioner.
That’s very interesting seeing this as a resilient response of a survivor , a strength not a weakness . Thank you .
Love these thought-provoking vignettes you provide (and the comments from others)! They keep me coming back to learn more…
I am looking at the Curse & Blessing factors of appeasement / fawn response, as it relates from a theological perspective (i.e., appeasing God to stay on God’s “good side” as more fundamental religions infer punishing vs. loving God). Insert whatever the reason would be to appease God (e.g., divorce, terminal diagnosis, fear of pergatory or hell, etc.)
For me, that religious appeasement developed after my mother died when I was 10, and my father almost died 6 mos. later. The fear of losing both parents helped shape my appeasement response towards God: being a very ‘good girl’ meant God would remain ‘pleased’ [personification of God], therefore not ‘take’ anymore loved ones from me. This illusionary response allowed a false sense of security to develop–the curse. However, it also allowed me to feel safe enough to begin grieving–the blessing.
Now, maturity; years of therapy, and years of seminary studies, I better understand the “please and appease” response with greater compassion, forgiveness and acceptance.
As a Unity minister, I greatly appreciate the fawn response and often “begin there” in my client sessions. Extremely Helpful.
Thank you!
It is so helpful to have a different way of looking at this type of response to trauma. I have begun working with a client who is in his 50s and in our first session reported how he has spent his life pleasing others. So this video clip is very timely as I now have an additional way of helping him understand his past behaviours in a positive way, as a useful survival mechanism.
Thank you.
focusing on the adaptive and life saving importance of apeasement is essential and not at all intuitive for the rescuer/saver. It is, I think, a better way of listening, a strength enducing strategy that deepens the unpacking of trauma.
Many thanks for this helpful reframing.
Warmly,
John Kavanaugh, LCSW
This is empowering! It demonstrates to the person who suffered abuse that their brain was fighting even when their body could not.
Very interesting perspective on the fawn / appeasement response. Thanks for sharing these powerful messages, NICABM!
Thank You for this. It releases a lot of my shame as a sexual abused person. I wondered why I would ask him to come to me and leave my sister alone and why I would Appease him by pretending to want him so he wouldn’t send us back to foster care.
I have had so many mixed feelings about this and now understand that from early childhood, I learned appeasement and still use this method. Especially during volatile moments.
I was always told to stand up for myself, don’t be a door mat, grow a spine, blah blah. I am an amazingly strong individual and was so insulted by those comments. Again made to feel Broken.
I have survived and thriving in areas and very Proud of my skills. I am in the process of fine tuning them so that I feel more solid in my decision making now.
Most of my understanding comes from these packages that NICABM puts forth.
Much Gratitude
So encouraging, bless you deeply and fully more and more!
I find this topic fascinating on so many levels-personal and professional. As someone who conducted Equine Assisted Counseling sessions, my horse coach and I have long discussed human/horse dynamics. The “advanced skill” of appeasement makes so much sense. It makes me wonder how much of this is how a horse survives–there is so much more going on in there than we’ve given them credit for. And the fact they have the largest mammalian amygdala (in proportion to the rest of their brain) gives me pause. That aside, I see this pattern in relations and friends as well. It changes the tone of “victim,” doesn’t it?
How fascinating about horse brain. Makes so much sense. Their empathic ability is astounding. Keep up the great work.
Karen, I also specialize in providing Equine Assisted Psychotherapy and have seen some amazing interactions between clients and my horses, with almost a shared physiological dance between them…. Dr Porges (and others), can you speak to this nonverbal communication and the potential it has for coregulation of the nervous system?
As an EMDR therapist, it struck me that there seems to be a similarity between the variety of somatic stimulation experienced by EMDR clients and horseback riders. I wonder if riding creates an activity of neurological-somatic processing very similar to EMDR.
My family has a combat vet. I’ve appeased him in the past to avoid abandonment and shame. I no longer appease him, now I’m on surer footing myself.
I’m surrounded by clients who find themselves unable to ‘do’ self care right now. Instead they lay down their lives in service to their loved ones – particularly children, partners and parents. It is utterly exhausting for them and some are quite literally killing themselves doing it. Most are women but not all. Perhaps this is a matter of attracting like energy because it’s something I have been observing and sitting with myself. I read a paper recently on Fawn and it resonated even though I have previously rejected the notion because I don’t see myself as a ‘people pleaser’ other than intentionally. But in the next breath I hear myself saying I would lay down my life for my children – and I can see codependence vs connection in some of my closest relationships. I learned how to take myself out of this conditioned response in my relationship with my father by relating to him vs him through me. It enabled me to delight in my time with him vs being exhausted by it. I am trying this with my daughter – and have arranged to do that alongside a professional because I want to understand what lies beneath as well as how to choose the path that serves me better. Does anyone have any related material that can help my clients and I?
Also known as collaboration in the coercive control literature; where the victim (female) will appease the perpetrator (male) to survive. No such thing as Stockholm syndrome, it’s a primary female survival response to male violence and abuse.
I worked with some men who pleased and appeased their narcissist wives. And mothers. One of them committed suicide. It’s very likely that his narcissist wife, whom he wanted to finally leave, yelled him down this bridge via phone. Women have their own way of being manipulative, abusive and violent. Survival responses are the same in men and women, or queer. I also regard narcissism as a survival response.
Yes this area of psychology is very complex i see in my own recent trauma every aspect of appease response along with personal self harming responses and choosing to induce failure rather than struggling within the currant possibility of failure and consequential accusations of failure to look after others in order to ‘selfishly’ hold on to my own happiness and wellbeing…The three entangle psychological elements are personal safety-happiness, avoiding disapproval, and dramatic external control issues designed to force separation rather than take the risk of external authoritative forces instigating the pain of separation within a net of shame and guilt and associated social emotional punishment……..there are times in our life when we might beg that the clock could be turned back, so our actions could be changed and owned and understood as our best response at the time…….
Thank you for putting the self harming behaviors in a different context. It’s making me rethink why people self harm. I’m encouraged to do more research on the why behind self harming.
I am struck by the compassion as well as the understanding of this complex dynamic by Porges. As someone living with a mother with BPD and a Father who had undiagnosedmental health issues, I was the scapegoat in the family. While I was not abducted, I recognize this behavior/ neurological response in my reaction to a situation where I grew up without a single ally. My life was a balancing act of trying to survive, knowing that at any moment my parents could turn on me and at the same time proving that I could run the household for them, beginning at age 8. Thank you Stephen Porges.
I so relate to your comment about your family system. Similar mental health issues, walking on eggshells, and I too had adult responsibility while being scapegoated without allies – so confusing and painful! I became a fawning expert and I am only unraveling it all now in my 5th decade. Compassionate insights like this one from Porges help on so many levels, especially with the crippling shame. Appeasement as an adaptive survival response undertaken by a resilient nervous system — wow, that’s quite a reframe from ‘why didn’t you stick up for yourself? Why weren’t you more assertive? Feel grateful I heard this clip
Very interesting and I really understand this. He talked about 3 books about people who had been abducted/hostages. I wondered if you could let me know the names of the books? I’d be very interested to read them
This hit home for me. Have recognized this often with many clients over the years. It is great to have words that identify it to help define the reaction.
As a very young child I spent five years riding a bike to get away. As Porges stated. I was able to put my response into a ” more voluntary mode, and with another underlying physiology, which had hopefulness, still had a desire to live, had a sufficient amount of energy. So it was, in a sense, relatively well-regulated.” If the perp had been violent I would have needed to take another nervous system response. When I finally got tired I started getting brave enough to goad which was my way to express my anger. Only did this when I knew there was someone close by in case I had to get back on that bike. Know if this perp had been violent, I would have worked on appeasing but I was not smart enough to even tell anyone as I did not understand him, his behavior or that I had no grown-up to confide my anger and fears. My anger, fear and disgust was not enormous enough to learn other strategies that would have been more helpful. Wish I had had a way to tell someone but was too alone and isolated which is the major part of the problem. Parents should never have left me with such a man without checking in on how I was doing as I am sure I displayed many clues in my behavior.
Instead I got in trouble for wanting to run or gallop all the time. I often wonder when I see a diagnosed a child with ADHD if they might have felt a need to keep moving to protect the body, or hearing anger in the household, as their means to escape by being busy. I kept busy a lot and wore myself out in the long run.
Porges always seems to understand human nature beyond many years of my training. Hope people take heed on how to help abused children or help adults in the office whose feet cannot stop moving while they tell their reason for counseling.
This just happened last week in an intake. It was obvious that there was some need to keep moving for this person growing up. The Sympathetic nerve was revelation for me to heed over years of helping these overly mobile folks. It also made me realize why at a more advanced age I had a stroke that affected my motor planning center. After that I could not ride a bike or run and it keeps me in very aware integration as to my lack of ability to protect myself. I will never see a stroke client without wondering how they got into this body response.
Really wish they screened stroke victims more thoroughly regarding mental health. They did not have the ACES screening tool earlier or perhaps I might have healed faster realizing I was unsafe to the extreme in my recovery. I tried too hard in recovery and overcame the paralysis, but then broke many bones falling. That fear never left, remains with me now, only I am more aware of it and love my car. If my car does not start now, I get panicky. My nervous system knows why so it is possible to put it in perspective, remaining calm which takes a lot of work in progress.
As someone who survived early insecure attachment, I am very interested in the description of “the please and appease” response to trauma. Dr. Porges describes people who had been abducted. Their response of “please and appease” was done with a level of awareness. From my personal experience, I have acted out aspects of the “please and appease response” and it has most often been on an unaware level. My question is , have others observed this response in clients who have suffered insecure, or disorganized early attachment ?
I have mostly pleased and appeased without conscious awareness of doing so. I’m 31 and now aware that these are my responses, but I still don’t always realize I’m pleasing and appeasing in the moment and want to kick myself later.
Helps to know it’s my nervous system and that it’s not really who I am, but what was done to me that is causing these responses.
Would be keen to hear what this might look like if mapped onto attachment …
Hi Jenny, After I posted my question about attachment, I read your question! I would be interested in continuing the conversation re: attachment and the “please and appease” response to trauma.
for example Patricia Crittenden in the dynamic maturative model of attachment speaks about a subcategory of avoidant attachment which she calls “compulsive acquiescent”. In my opinion it is just that.
This is a very important discussion- attachment theory as it pertains to the healer / client relationship.
Too much abuse of power currently