Fawning responses are part and parcel of the way empathic people process difficult situational and relational dynamics. Indeed, fawning is so common we see it as the default in much of Christian fellowship dynamics. It’s done because the person does not want to in any way appear unkind. It’s done this way because an empath cannot stand the thought of hurting people.
Fawning can be described as behaviour that completely and consistently abandons one’s own needs to serve others to avoid conflict, disapproval, antagonism, and criticism.
When people say, “hurt people hurt people,” it basically disqualifies the empath from being an abuser, because even when they are abused, they do their own work to heal up just to ensure they are not a danger to anyone.
Given that the empath (in those of us that identify) employs fawning as a typical response to many relational dynamics, the determination of a safe relationship is one where the other person allows for such fawning, and there is space for both to discuss and embrace it.
Unsafe people will always take advantage of the fawning response. They will always capitalise on what is an open door to exploitation. This is how we can see it in an abuser, and the abuser walks straight into that trap. The trouble is, we need so many more trauma-informed people who will see these relational dynamics, because most really do not. The unsafe person, therefore, is the one that extracts the fawn response by manipulation for the purpose of manipulation. When you know what you’re looking for it stands out like day.
On the other hand, the safe person will intuit the fawn response as being overly friendly and overly accommodating. In their seeing this, it’s typical that they’ll identify that they too fawn in the face of uncertainty.
For the safe person, there is the opportunity to develop closer rapport with the person who fawns, because fawning is vulnerable behaviour operating out of vulnerability. The very thing that the unsafe person does in exploiting the vulnerable fawning behaviour is seen by the safe person as an invitation to a mutuality of friendship.
This is one reason why we should not criticise people for fawning. Seen another way, it’s the naivete that otherwise facilitates beautiful relationships, if only with safe people.
There is so much negativity about the trauma responses of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, but truly each of these responses has a redemptive side. The redemptive side of the fawn response is the beautiful gentleness, patience, kindness, and graciousness of a person who is prepared to sacrificially serve anyone.
And, of course, there is much wisdom in the fawn response when a person detects danger. We could argue that the fawn response is a special gift of discernment. Not only is the person who uses the fawn response protected, they avert danger in so many ways for others, and indeed, for knowledgeable watchers-on they reveal abusers wherever the fawning is exploited.
The fact of the matter is nobody should ever be taken advantage of for fawning.
It’s a beautiful moment in a relationship where two or more people can observe each other’s fawning and recognise it for the service and love that’s in it, if not for the safety and security that they in that moment crave.
It’s not a crime to crave safety and security—these are human needs. Craving safety and security reveals the inherent sacred vulnerability in a person not given to evil. That the world is so often an unsafe place is a blight on what it otherwise should be.
It’s beautiful when a person can notice vulnerability and instead of taking advantage of it and honour the vulnerability as something that reflects the love of a Christ who bore our crosses on his own back.
It ought to be seen as a love for the other that insists on nothing for itself. It’s just such a pity that fawning is seen as a weakness because of the amount of it that’s taken advantage of.
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