The Fawn Response: People Pleasing, Self-Abandonment, and Standing Up for Yourself

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2024

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dr. Rick and Forrest finish their series on the stress responses with the fawn response: an appeasement strategy where we manage stressful situations by giving others what they want. Rick and Forrest start by discussing common symptoms, including people pleasing, self-abandonment, difficulty saying no, weak boundaries, and chronic self-sacrifice. They talk about the roots of the fawn response and its connection to complex PTSD before exploring people pleasing in detail. In the second half of the episode they focus on practical tools for developing healthy boundaries, self-acceptance, and a stronger sense of self. You can watch this episode on YouTube. Key Topics: 0:00: Introduction 2:15: What the fawn response looks like 9:05: Power imbalances, shame, and contempt 11:35: What personal history tends to lead to fawning? 20:00: How to work on the tendency to fawn 36:30: Shame, self-acceptance, and opening up to self-expression 41:25: The fawn response in relationship 46:40: Becoming your own source of safety 52:20: Making equitable arrangements, and acknowledging your best efforts 1:01:50: Recap I am now writing on Substack, check out my work there. Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/beingwell. Transform your health with the ZOE Science & Nutrition podcast. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts. Zocdoc helps you find expert doctors and medical professionals that specialize in the care you need, and deliver the type of experience you want. Head to zocdoc.com/being and download the Zocdoc app for FREE. OneSkin focuses on delivering more than superficial results for your skin. Get started today with 15% off using code BEINGWELL at oneskin.co. Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world’s largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month! Connect with the show: Subscribe on iTunes Follow Forrest on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Follow Forrest on Instagram Follow Rick on Facebook Follow Forrest on Facebook Visit Forrest's website

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and
0:05.0	welcome to being well, I'm Forrest Hansen.
0:10.0	If you're new to the show, thanks for listening today
0:12.0	and if you've listened before, welcome back.
0:14.6	We've recently done a series of episodes on the stress responses,
0:18.4	including dedicated episodes of the fight, flight, and freeze responses.
0:22.6	And then before those episodes we did one on self-abandement that I thought served as kind of an
0:28.0	episode on the fun response.
0:30.9	And we then got so many requests for a dedicated episode on the fun response that that's what we're going to be doing today.
0:38.0	And to help me explore that, I'm joined as usual by clinical psychologist Dr. Rick Hansen.
0:43.0	So dad, how are you doing today?
0:44.8	I'm good and I love this material.
0:48.4	Yeah, I really loved it too.
0:50.0	It's been incredibly helpful for me personally
0:52.3	to explore it because I feel like I've learned
0:54.3	a lot about all of these different responses including how they show up in my life.
0:59.5	And I think that one of the parts of it that has been particularly useful for me and I hope useful for other people as well,
1:04.7	has been understanding the stress responses as being functional in nature.
1:10.0	I think that we can often take a very pathologizing stance
1:13.6	towards our responses to stressful situations
1:17.2	and by framing them appropriately
1:19.0	as a way of solving the single most important challenge that we face in life,
	...

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