Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves—and How to Find Our Way Back

by Ingrid Clayton

Fawning is taught, encouraged, and expected in so many contexts, which is why we can miss it as a trauma response and why we can think it is just our personality. Fawning flourishes and is perpetuated because it’s bigger than one person’s body or coping mechanism. It is ignited in us, then, through a feedback loop, becomes amplified and rewarded in the world. Our sense of self becomes distorted not just through personal adaptation, but because systems of oppression accelerate this process of change, moving us further away from our inherent state. This is why so many fawners might need to “turn off the comments,” so to speak. To stop or step out of the feedback loops that prefer our deference and encourage self-doubt and self-censorship. So we can discern, and truly hear, our own voice.