Fawning is a way trauma survivors keep themselves safe.

I know I'm fawning when I feel small and acquiesce to another's interests.

Learning how to unfawn honors my integrity and deepens my relationships.

On a recent road trip, my partner and I decided to listen to an audiobook. The first title that popped up was Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves and How to Find Our Way Back. Over the course of the next several hundred miles, we found ourselves nodding, pausing the narration, and discussing how we each exhibit fawning behavior.

Written by a fellow Psychology Today blogger, Dr. Ingrid Clayton’s posts have attracted over 1 million views. Now that I’m primed to recognize what fawning looks like, such readership is no surprise. Most everyone I know fawns at least a bit.........

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