The Unseen 4th F Trauma Response At Work After Fight, Flight Or Freeze

Your boss keeps breathing down your neck, and you tell him to take the job and shove it (fight). A coworker keeps talking over you in a meeting, and you run out of the room (flight). An associate touches you in a sexually-inappropriate way, and your body stiffens (freeze). Each scenario of fight, flight and freeze is a trauma response that occurs when we feel threatened. But there’s a little-known, unseen 4th F trauma response. Either you or a team member could have the little-known 4th F trauma response on a daily basis that goes unseen and you wouldn’t know it.

The 4th F Trauma Response In The Workplace

Chances are, you’re familiar with fight, flight and freeze. But a fourth “F” is right before your eyes daily at work. And you probably don’t realize that it’s another trauma response to a threat. The majority of your team agrees on a new branding method for your product. And, although you adamantly disagree with it, you smile and say you’re 0ne-hundred percent onboard (fawning).

Fawning is the trauma response that says, “If I can just keep everyone else happy, maybe I’ll be safe.” It’s a survival strategy rooted in appeasement. “Unlike fight, flight or freeze--which center around protecting oneself directly--fawning shifts our focus externally," according to clinical psychologist Dr. Ingrid Clayton. ”We keep the peace, diffuse conflict and mold ourselves into what others want--all in hopes of staying physically or emotionally safe."

Clayton, author of FAWNING: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves—And How to Find Our Way Back, explains how in a nanosecond the reptilian brain selects the response that offers the greatest chance for safety. “It instinctively knows that fighting back or fleeing (having a voice, engaging in conflict or having firm boundaries or the ability to walk away) is not possible, or makes things worse. After a threat (or perceived threat) passes, the body remembers what survival response was successful and repeats it in the future.”

Although the F trauma responses keep you safe, they also have the potential to derail your career. Fawners often overwork, over-give, over-care, over-apologize and self-abandon in order to earn approval, avoid conflict or feel secure. “But it’s not about being overly nice or wanting approval for its own sake,” Clayton notes. “Fawning is born in environments where safety depends on staying emotionally attuned to people who hold power, even when those people are the source of harm.”

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How To Spot The Hidden 4th F Trauma Response

In the workplace, Clayton tells me that fawning can look deceptively like being a “team player” or “high performer” or even look like success. “You’ll see it in employees who can’t say no, who take on more than their share, constantly work overtime to keep authority figures comfortable,” she points out. “A fawner’s need for reassurance can manifest as perfectionism, and all of this can be rewarded in the workplace—concretizing what is actually self-abandonment at any cost.”

On the flip side, Clayton suggests that fawning includes staying silent in meetings even when you disagree. You might have a great idea but don’t want to rock the boat. “When being too big or bold might threaten relational safety, fawning has people hitting ceilings in their career,” she mentions. “Doing work for others and never getting credit. Unable to ask for raises or promotions. Fawning can keep us privileging others over ourselves, to the detriment of our career.”

Long term, fawners often burn out. Over-doing leads to exhaustion. People-pleasing turns into resentments. They are waiting to be seen, validated, but they don’t know that a chronic trauma response is what’s keeping them stuck – being solely what others want them to be.

In terms of relational safety in the workplace, Clayton believes it’s important to acknowledge the need for a paycheck. She states that financial security is survival as when an employee depends on a boss or company for advancement for their reputation. They merge with expectations, she contends, silence their truth and shapeshift their way through the day. And power structures everywhere reinforce, reward even require fawning. We can’t just say, “Stop doing that!” when we continue to live in contexts that encourage or necessitate fawning.

5 Steps To Take If You Notice The 4th F Trauma Response

1. Notice and name the pattern: Awareness is the first act of resistance. Once you begin to recognize fawning as a trauma response, not a personality flaw, you can interrupt the cycle. You can lessen the shame. Notice when you say “yes” automatically or override your own discomfort. You don’t have to do anything with this information just yet, the key is to notice.

2. Rebuild your internal compass: As internal safety was always dependent on external permission/validation, fawners need to start asking: What do I want? How do I feel? What do I need? This internal checking-in process helps restore your sense of agency. Writing can be a helpful tool along these lines.

3. Practice small boundaries: Don’t start with big confrontations. These will only elicit your threat response! Begin with small no’s. “I’d love to help, but I’m at capacity.” “Let me think about that and get back to you.” These micro-moments build muscle memory for boundary-setting and grow our capacity for it over time.

4. Challenge the urge to over-explain: Fawners often justify every boundary, fearing rejection. Learn to offer simple, kind, direct responses. You are allowed to say what you think and feel, allowed to say no without a ten-point dissertation.

5. Get curious, not judgmental: Fawning is adaptive, not shameful. When it shows up, instead of criticizing yourself, ask: What am I afraid will happen if I don’t please this person? That question often leads back to early survival fears, which can often be attended to now through self-compassion practices and trauma-informed therapy.

A Final Wrap On The 4th F Trauma Response

Clayton describes fawning as a lifelong coping strategy, originating in childhood, common among workers with complex trauma and disguised as being “nice.” If you were constantly invalidated or not allowed to have your voice, fawning could’ve fused with who you are, and you think it’s just their “personality.” You’re unaware you’re bringing your survival strategies into the workplace.

Left unaddressed, fawning can silently derail careers or relationships and personal well-being. “In the workplace, fawning creates cultures where voices go unheard, burnout festers and innovation suffers,” she explains. “Fawners often suppress ideas, withhold feedback and over-function in teams to avoid perceived conflict or rejection.”

But when employees begin to understand fawning is a protective mechanism that can be healed, they can begin to reclaim their voices. From that place, healthier boundaries, more authentic leadership, and sustainable success become possible. Clayton concludes that naming and addressing the 4th F trauma response is an act of collective healing, adding it’s how we begin to shift workplace culture from one of silent survival to one of genuine safety and self-expression.