Ingrid Clayton – Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
Clinical psychologist Dr. Ingrid Clayton reveals the hidden fourth trauma response that may be the most common of all: fawning. In this enlightening episode, Clayton explores how fawning - the instinctive urge to appease, flatter, and caretake when facing threat - develops as a survival mechanism in unsafe environments but becomes a chronic pattern that leads to self-abandonment. (02:14) Drawing from her own experience with childhood trauma and grooming, as well as two decades of clinical work, she explains how society actually encourages and rewards fawning behavior, making it difficult to recognize and address.
- Main theme: Understanding fawning as a legitimate nervous system trauma response that moves beyond fight, flight, or freeze when those options aren't available or might make situations worse, and learning how to reclaim authentic selfhood without shame.
Speakers
Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Dr. Ingrid Clayton is a Los Angeles-based clinical psychologist with over twenty years of experience specializing in complex trauma. She is the author of "Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves and How to Find Our Way Back" and previously published the memoir "Believing Me" in 2022. Clayton is also in long-term recovery and draws from both her professional expertise and personal experience as a "recovering fawner" to help others understand and heal from trauma responses.
Key Takeaways
Fawning is a Legitimate Nervous System Response, Not a Character Flaw
Clayton emphasizes that fawning is not a conscious choice but an automatic nervous system response that occurs when fight, flight, or freeze aren't available or might make situations worse. (02:44) Unlike people-pleasing or codependency labels that often carry shame, understanding fawning through a trauma-informed lens removes blame and puts these behaviors back into the context of our physiology and life experiences. This reframe is crucial because it recognizes fawning as "an adaptive genius response to dysfunctional environments" rather than treating individuals as inherently broken. For professionals, this means approaching persistent people-pleasing patterns with self-compassion rather than self-criticism, understanding that your body was trying to protect you in the best way it knew how.
Society Actively Rewards and Encourages Fawning Behaviors
Unlike other trauma responses, fawning is uniquely reinforced by society because it benefits others. (10:16) Clayton points out that fawning behaviors like constant caretaking, over-volunteering, and conflict avoidance are often praised and expected, especially from marginalized groups and women. This societal conditioning makes fawning particularly entrenched because it "looks like conscious choice" and "looks like agency" while actually being a survival response. For ambitious professionals, recognizing this dynamic is essential - your workplace may reward your tendency to take on extra responsibilities, avoid conflict, and prioritize others' needs, but this pattern may be costing you authentic connection to your own values and desires.
True Healing Requires Building Internal Safety Before External Changes
Clayton emphasizes that effective healing from chronic fawning must address nervous system dysregulation first, not just behavioral changes. (49:49) She recommends practices like walking combined with "orienting" - using your senses to connect with your environment - to help your nervous system recognize present-moment safety. The key insight is that when we're dysregulated, our vision narrows and we feel constantly unsafe, which perpetuates fawning responses. By learning to regulate your nervous system through embodied practices, you create the internal foundation necessary to make authentic choices rather than reactive survival responses.
Self-Connection Through Embodied Awareness Replaces External Validation
The path out of chronic fawning involves shifting from constant external orientation ("What do you need and how can I help you?") to internal awareness ("What am I experiencing right now?"). (27:12) Clayton teaches clients to ask "What are you noticing now?" rather than "What do you think?" because this language connects them to their somatic, embodied experience. She recommends the practice of placing your hand on your heart, especially skin-to-skin, which releases oxytocin and builds self-connection. This isn't about never helping others, but about including yourself in the equation so you don't "go missing" in your own life.
Authentic Relationships Require Renegotiation, Not Elimination
Clayton clarifies that healing from fawning doesn't mean cutting everyone out of your life or never accommodating others. (36:42) Instead, it means developing "conscious choice" where you can decide from an embodied, aware place rather than from compulsive survival responses. Using the Pinocchio metaphor, she explains that when your "strings are cut," you might still choose to make someone happy because you genuinely want to, not because you feel you have to. This approach allows for relationship renegotiation where you can communicate your healing journey to safe partners and create more authentic connections that honor both people's full selves.
Statistics & Facts
- Pete Walker coined the term "fawning" as a trauma response over ten years ago, according to Clayton, making it a relatively recent addition to trauma therapy understanding. (02:34) This explains why many people, including trauma therapists, may not be familiar with this fourth trauma response.
- Clayton mentions that Rocket Money app users report saving more than $700 per year, though this was part of a sponsored segment and not directly related to the fawning discussion. (50:09)
- No other specific statistics were provided in this episode, with Clayton focusing more on qualitative experiences and clinical observations rather than quantitative data.
