This is such a clear and generous breakdown, and I love how you name fawning as intelligent, not just dysfunctional. That reframe matters. And… I find myself sitting with the part that isn’t always said out loud: for a lot of women, this isn’t just a nervous system pattern—it’s a socially reinforced one. We were rewarded for anticipating needs, praised for being “easy,” chosen for how little we required. So the body learns quickly: this keeps me safe. This keeps me loved. This keeps things running.
Thank you April for your comment. Indeed I didn’t deep dive into the feminine aspect of it but women are more likely than men to experience fawning, for the reasons you mentioned but also because it is an intelligent strategy- (albeit later damaging) especially for those less able to fight or flee. Appreciate your feedback.
Thank you so much for sharing. I've been pondering this deeply over the past week. I'm a life-long fawner and a lot of my healing journey the past year (through breathwork and medicine) has illuminated how these patterns formed, and how to break out of them.
I've been thinking a lot about fawning and how it erodes your own personal integrity: when you sacrifice yourself you not only hurt your own being, but potentially that of the person you are pleasing. A line from a mentor that sticks with me is a prayer she offers before working with someone that is something like: "I choose to release all need to be the answer for other people, or to become the comfort that would displace the challenges that would allow them to grow." Stepping into your own sovereignty allows others to do the same.
I'm still learning how not to be the comfort of others (my default is automatically avoiding conflict and pleasing others), but I am making great progress. A big thanks to Osher for being a huge influence on this path.
That is beautiful. The cost of fawning is too great to bear. Alexythimia, losing the ability to name one’s own needs, is at the very core of it. Here’s to you graduating fawning. Thank you so much for writing.
the line about being nice feeling expansive and fawning feeling constrictive is the simplest diagnostic test i have encountered for a pattern most people spend years trying to name. if the generosity contracts you, it was never generosity.
what you mapped about fawning sitting on the hypo-aroused side of the nervous system alongside freeze rather than the hyper-aroused side is the part that reframes the entire conversation. most people conceptualize people-pleasing as active - effort, energy, trying harder. but you located it as a dissociative response. the fawner is not choosing to appease. the fawner has left themselves in order to manage the threat. that distinction matters because it explains why cognitive interventions fail. you cannot talk someone out of a state they did not think their way into. the recovery path for a hypo-aroused response is not insight. it is regulation - reconnecting the person to the body they evacuated in order to keep someone else comfortable.
dismantling the danger was brilliant when you were small. the work now is learning that the danger ended before the strategy did.
I commented about the rule of thumb part in reply to your other comment.
While I created the visual map of the 4 Fs and the nervous system because I could not find one to depict it as I thought it can / should be, I cannot possibly take the credit for the framing of Fawning as a hypo-aroused response. That understanding came long before me, fawning has just for the most part has been little known and often misunderstood. Perhaps partly because fawning is deceiving in its seemingly active nature, partly because it is expected in some cultures and encouraged by certain individuals. Thank you for writing.
the line that being nice feels expansive while fawning feels constrictive is worth the entire article. that single distinction could save people years of confusion about why their kindness leaves them hollow.
what struck me about this piece is the connection between fawning and alexithymia - losing the ability to even identify your own feelings. that is the part that makes recovery so disorienting. you cannot advocate for needs you cannot name. and you cannot name needs you were never allowed to have. the fawner does not just lose their boundaries - they lose access to the internal data that would tell them where boundaries should go.
the darkest part you named is that fawners attract manipulators. and it is not random. the person who cannot say no is legible to the person who needs to hear yes. that pattern does not break until the fawner builds an identity that is not rooted in being useful.
That rule of thumb as niceness as expansive and fawning as constructive bypasses a lot of the “story” one might have around it and get right to the body level undeniable knowing.
I find it interesting that though the connection between Alexithymia has been well established and researched (run a google scholar for the two words to see some) it is hardly spoken of.
Thank you so much for your 3 part comment. Yes to all. Lovely connecting with you. Please feel free to share with others. No pay walls here. Cheers, Osher.
@Osher thanks for your essay. I appreciate how clearly you lay out the 4F framework with fawning front and center.
One thing I'd push on: you ask why fawning has a "PR fail" compared to fight, flight, and freeze. I don't think it's an accident. Fight disrupts. Flight withdraws. Freeze halts production. But fawning keeps the machine running. It anticipates demand, absorbs tension, suppresses the self, and gets rewarded for all of it. We call it professionalism, emotional intelligence, being a team player. The reason fawning stays unnamed isn't a gap in awareness. It's that naming it threatens the systems that depend on it.
I wrote about this in Fawning and the Machinery of Capitalism:
I appreciate what you bring up. I used the term “bad PR” as a tongue in cheek, it’s not like the other 3 Fs have a PR campaign going. But I totally hear you. I have mentioned that some cultures expect and encourage fawning and certainly toxic corporate culture is among them.💯
Alexithymia- they lose the ability to identify and describe their own emotions.
Wow, I didn't know it had a name.
This article is so spot on, from the parentification to the people pleasing to the constant apologizing and feeling exhausted.
But I do wonder if over-apologizing is cultural. Like, are there cultures that teach people to always apologize, whether or not something is their fault?
Not being able to name feelings has a name indeed :)
Thank you McKayla for writing.
Re culture and apologizing- as I briefly mentioned: many manifestations of fawning certainly have cultural aspects. Think: Not saying no.
I deliberately chose not to side dive into fawning across cultures since it felt besides the point, not within my expertise to speak of, plus too long to get into. A full review of fawning across cultures and subcultures can easily fill a book.
Thanks Osher for this lovely article, makes me think about this mechanism. I tend to understand fawning as more hyperarousal-based, given how activated and mobilized people become in appeasing. Clinically, I see it less as a primary autonomic response and more as a higher-order defense—often involving reaction formation, where suppressed aggression and the underlying fight impulse (and boundary setting?) are converted into accommodation. I see this often in Enneagram Type 9 egos, and in my experience, it rarely presents with hypoarousal while actively fawning, but maybe after the "fight" they do go into hypo?
Thank you Sena. One of the main reasons I wrote this article is exactly because Fawning is misunderstood. Fawning can be misclassified as a hyper-aroused stated because people confuse behavior with physiology. While it is masked as a sympathetic state it is dorsal vagal in nature. The outward engagement masks the internal shutdown. Pete Walker in Complex PTSD already pointed at that confusion some 13 years ago.
As for the enneagram- a comparison between a nervous system response and a personality archetype isn’t a comparison I’d make.
This is such a clear and generous breakdown, and I love how you name fawning as intelligent, not just dysfunctional. That reframe matters. And… I find myself sitting with the part that isn’t always said out loud: for a lot of women, this isn’t just a nervous system pattern—it’s a socially reinforced one. We were rewarded for anticipating needs, praised for being “easy,” chosen for how little we required. So the body learns quickly: this keeps me safe. This keeps me loved. This keeps things running.
Thank you April for your comment. Indeed I didn’t deep dive into the feminine aspect of it but women are more likely than men to experience fawning, for the reasons you mentioned but also because it is an intelligent strategy- (albeit later damaging) especially for those less able to fight or flee. Appreciate your feedback.
Thank you for clarifying! So true.
Thank you so much for sharing. I've been pondering this deeply over the past week. I'm a life-long fawner and a lot of my healing journey the past year (through breathwork and medicine) has illuminated how these patterns formed, and how to break out of them.
I've been thinking a lot about fawning and how it erodes your own personal integrity: when you sacrifice yourself you not only hurt your own being, but potentially that of the person you are pleasing. A line from a mentor that sticks with me is a prayer she offers before working with someone that is something like: "I choose to release all need to be the answer for other people, or to become the comfort that would displace the challenges that would allow them to grow." Stepping into your own sovereignty allows others to do the same.
I'm still learning how not to be the comfort of others (my default is automatically avoiding conflict and pleasing others), but I am making great progress. A big thanks to Osher for being a huge influence on this path.
That is beautiful. The cost of fawning is too great to bear. Alexythimia, losing the ability to name one’s own needs, is at the very core of it. Here’s to you graduating fawning. Thank you so much for writing.
the line about being nice feeling expansive and fawning feeling constrictive is the simplest diagnostic test i have encountered for a pattern most people spend years trying to name. if the generosity contracts you, it was never generosity.
what you mapped about fawning sitting on the hypo-aroused side of the nervous system alongside freeze rather than the hyper-aroused side is the part that reframes the entire conversation. most people conceptualize people-pleasing as active - effort, energy, trying harder. but you located it as a dissociative response. the fawner is not choosing to appease. the fawner has left themselves in order to manage the threat. that distinction matters because it explains why cognitive interventions fail. you cannot talk someone out of a state they did not think their way into. the recovery path for a hypo-aroused response is not insight. it is regulation - reconnecting the person to the body they evacuated in order to keep someone else comfortable.
dismantling the danger was brilliant when you were small. the work now is learning that the danger ended before the strategy did.
Thank you Mercer for your thoughtful comment.
I commented about the rule of thumb part in reply to your other comment.
While I created the visual map of the 4 Fs and the nervous system because I could not find one to depict it as I thought it can / should be, I cannot possibly take the credit for the framing of Fawning as a hypo-aroused response. That understanding came long before me, fawning has just for the most part has been little known and often misunderstood. Perhaps partly because fawning is deceiving in its seemingly active nature, partly because it is expected in some cultures and encouraged by certain individuals. Thank you for writing.
the line that being nice feels expansive while fawning feels constrictive is worth the entire article. that single distinction could save people years of confusion about why their kindness leaves them hollow.
what struck me about this piece is the connection between fawning and alexithymia - losing the ability to even identify your own feelings. that is the part that makes recovery so disorienting. you cannot advocate for needs you cannot name. and you cannot name needs you were never allowed to have. the fawner does not just lose their boundaries - they lose access to the internal data that would tell them where boundaries should go.
the darkest part you named is that fawners attract manipulators. and it is not random. the person who cannot say no is legible to the person who needs to hear yes. that pattern does not break until the fawner builds an identity that is not rooted in being useful.
That rule of thumb as niceness as expansive and fawning as constructive bypasses a lot of the “story” one might have around it and get right to the body level undeniable knowing.
I find it interesting that though the connection between Alexithymia has been well established and researched (run a google scholar for the two words to see some) it is hardly spoken of.
Thank you so much for your 3 part comment. Yes to all. Lovely connecting with you. Please feel free to share with others. No pay walls here. Cheers, Osher.
@Osher thanks for your essay. I appreciate how clearly you lay out the 4F framework with fawning front and center.
One thing I'd push on: you ask why fawning has a "PR fail" compared to fight, flight, and freeze. I don't think it's an accident. Fight disrupts. Flight withdraws. Freeze halts production. But fawning keeps the machine running. It anticipates demand, absorbs tension, suppresses the self, and gets rewarded for all of it. We call it professionalism, emotional intelligence, being a team player. The reason fawning stays unnamed isn't a gap in awareness. It's that naming it threatens the systems that depend on it.
I wrote about this in Fawning and the Machinery of Capitalism:
https://yauguru.substack.com/p/fawning-and-the-machinery-of-capitalism?r=217mr3
Thank you Stephen for your comment.
I appreciate what you bring up. I used the term “bad PR” as a tongue in cheek, it’s not like the other 3 Fs have a PR campaign going. But I totally hear you. I have mentioned that some cultures expect and encourage fawning and certainly toxic corporate culture is among them.💯
Thanks Osher
Alexithymia- they lose the ability to identify and describe their own emotions.
Wow, I didn't know it had a name.
This article is so spot on, from the parentification to the people pleasing to the constant apologizing and feeling exhausted.
But I do wonder if over-apologizing is cultural. Like, are there cultures that teach people to always apologize, whether or not something is their fault?
Not being able to name feelings has a name indeed :)
Thank you McKayla for writing.
Re culture and apologizing- as I briefly mentioned: many manifestations of fawning certainly have cultural aspects. Think: Not saying no.
I deliberately chose not to side dive into fawning across cultures since it felt besides the point, not within my expertise to speak of, plus too long to get into. A full review of fawning across cultures and subcultures can easily fill a book.
Thanks Osher for this lovely article, makes me think about this mechanism. I tend to understand fawning as more hyperarousal-based, given how activated and mobilized people become in appeasing. Clinically, I see it less as a primary autonomic response and more as a higher-order defense—often involving reaction formation, where suppressed aggression and the underlying fight impulse (and boundary setting?) are converted into accommodation. I see this often in Enneagram Type 9 egos, and in my experience, it rarely presents with hypoarousal while actively fawning, but maybe after the "fight" they do go into hypo?
Thank you Sena. One of the main reasons I wrote this article is exactly because Fawning is misunderstood. Fawning can be misclassified as a hyper-aroused stated because people confuse behavior with physiology. While it is masked as a sympathetic state it is dorsal vagal in nature. The outward engagement masks the internal shutdown. Pete Walker in Complex PTSD already pointed at that confusion some 13 years ago.
As for the enneagram- a comparison between a nervous system response and a personality archetype isn’t a comparison I’d make.
Thank you so much for writing.