Fawning: Dr. Ingrid Clayton and Laura McKowen on the Need to Please and Finding Our Way Back to Ourselves

Are you an extreme people pleaser? Do you apologize to people who hurt you? Discount others’ bad behavior? Shapeshift into someone you’re not to gain approval that may never come? If yes, you might be fawning – the term for the still emerging relational trauma response wherein people adapt to make themselves as helpful or unthreatening as possible in harmful situations and relationships.

Dr. Ingrid Clayton — clinical psychologist, complex trauma expert, abuse survivor, and former fawner — joins us to talk about her new book, Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves — and How to Find Our Way Back. Dr. Clayton unpacks this under-explored fourth “F” of trauma (after “fight,” “flight,” and “freeze”), illuminating why we fall into toxic relationships, stay in exploitive jobs, and tolerate dysfunctional environments, even when it seems obvious to others we should leave. She also offers a path forward, sharing strategies for learning to successfully “unfawn” and return to our authentic selves and values. An empowering talk for those healing from relational trauma and anyone seeking a more fulfilling life on their own terms.