The 4 Trauma Responses

Written By Moriah Conant M.A.

Here at Woven, we specialize in trauma therapy. We are passionate about providing trauma-informed care, and a big part of that work is providing psychoeducation on trauma and its effects on our bodies and minds so you can feel empowered in your healing. One of the first steps in understanding your own trauma and healing is to learn about trauma responses.

What is a trauma response?

A trauma response is what it sounds like: It is the way that we respond when we are faced with trauma. Depending on our upbringings, life experiences, and personalities, we will respond to trauma in different ways. You may primarily respond with one type of trauma response, or your responses may vary depending on the circumstances and relationships.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty details of the different responses, I want to affirm you. When you are faced with trauma, you respond in the best way you know how to with the resources that are available to you. Your trauma responses are you trying to protect yourself and survive. You can honor that you were protecting yourself, even if you want to intentionally respond differently in the future.

What are the 4 trauma responses?

Fawn

A fawn response can look like extreme people pleasing. The goal of a fawn response is to create peace with the other person in order to try and avoid conflict. This might look like taking care of other people at the expense of yourself. 

The downside of this response is that your needs are not being met. You may have been implicitly taught, or maybe even explicitly told, that your needs are not important, so you downplay your needs. Not having needs or always being pleasant may have been conditions of your early relationships, so that is how you operate in your adult relationships.

You deserve to be in relationships where you can be honest about your needs and feelings. Your needs should be met in the same way that you meet the needs of others. If you utilize the fawn response, it might mean that one of your relational strengths is conflict resolution. This can be a strength and it can also be important to advocate for and have your needs met.

Fight

A fight response utilizes conflict when faced with trauma. This can be verbal fighting or even physical fighting. A fight response can feel like it creates space or safety because fighting can build a wall in a relationship. This could feel like safety because fighting prevents vulnerability. It could also create safety from people who are unsafe or wish you harm.

This trauma response may protect you in traumatic situations, but it may also prevent you from building intimate and deep relationships with safe individuals. You may have developed this response if your caregivers frequently fought, or if you did not have others who protected you.

You deserve to be in relationships where you can let your guard down and have other people support and protect you. If you utilize the fight response, advocacy and standing up for others may be strengths of yours. This can be a strength and it may be important for you to let your guard down in relationships that are safe.

Flight

A flight response is based on the belief that getting out of a situation will keep you safe. This might look like physically leaving a situation, or it could be mentally or emotionally checking out of a situation. This response is intended to keep you safe by removing you from a situation that is unsafe. 

This trauma response may keep you safe in traumatic situations, but it may also keep you from engaging in relationships. You may have developed a flight response if you did not grow up in relationships that helped you regulate your emotions or facilitated the co-regulation of emotions.

You deserve to be in safe relationships that will hold space for you and help you regulate your emotions. If you utilize the flight response, you may have a keen sense of unsafe situations. This can be a strength and if it is overactive, may prompt you to leave situations that are actually safe.

Freeze

A freeze response may feel like you’re intentionally shutting down or it may feel like something that is just happening to you. It might feel like your mind is blank, that you can’t move or take action, or that you’re dissociating away from the situation. This might feel like safety because you are not mentally or emotionally present in the situation. 

This trauma response most likely kept you safe if you were in really intense situations like someone berating you, or if you didn’t experience relationships where you could safely show up as yourself.

You deserve to be in relationships that will make space for you if you need to slow down in intense situations. Safe people will be understanding of the pace that you need to take as you process and relate to others. If you utilize a freeze response, it may have helped you develop a tolerance for uncomfortable or painful situations. This may have been a protective strength and it may make it difficult to be present in situations that are safe.

Changing Trauma Responses

If you find yourself responding to non-traumatic situations with trauma responses, that may be a sign that some additional support could be needed to process your trauma and trauma responses. Processing why we are responding to situations with one of these four response types can help us understand the purpose that the response is serving and your needs that are not being met.

If you want additional support to process your trauma and work on changing your responses, one of our therapists can help. We specialize in trauma, and each of our therapists have different niches. You can learn more about our therapists and schedule a free 30-minute consultation with our therapist matchmaker below.

Learn more about our approach to therapy:

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