The Fawn Response in Therapy: Why You Feel the Need to Please Your Therapist
People pleasing tendencies are when we have a reflex to default to other’s opinions or perceptions of us, suppress our true thoughts/ feelings, and to be submissive or compliant.
These tendencies are usually a trauma response to childhood’s where we HAD to take on a submissive (fawn) response to taking care of others needs at the expense of abandoning our own needs, not needing anything, and suppressing any disagreement or negative emotion. However when those of us who wrestle with being authentic to our own experience show up for therapy, we find ourselves repeating similar dynamics with our therapist.
Sometimes this looks like excessively worrying about the therapist, wanting to make the therapist like you, taking or approving of recommendations when you actually don’t like them or feel conflictual about them.
What can I do when I notice this happening?
Try naming it when it happens, and asking if you can talk about the therapeutic dynamic with your therapist
Trying it out: Perhaps it sounds like ” I notice me nodding and saying yes, when I actual feel differently”, or “I find it difficult to notice how I’m feeling because I’m so worried about how your feeling as my therapist or what you are thinking about me”
Instead of agreeing, try pausing and even saying “i don’t know” to avoid automatically agreeing.
Give yourself a minute to close your eyes or even slow down to really focus on yourself, your body and notice what you are experiencing.
Although it may be terrifying to bring this up in therapy, this will not only enrich your experience, intimacy and trust with your therapist, it will deepen your relational dynamic that most likely also happens with other people you are in relationship with.
The good news is therapist are accustomed to talking about people’s experience of them in the therapy room, and you will not shock or offend your therapist. (if you do, find a new therapist!). Being honest with yourself is a process, especially when the default has been to disown your experience. Go easy on yourself, it takes time to develop a new muscle.
This blog was written by: Erica Lima, LCSW, MSW licensed therapist at Sunset Trauma Therapy and Consultation PLLC providing online therapy for folks in North Carolina and California on Mar 11, 2022.
