People Pleasing as a Trauma Response
We all have different ways of responding to trauma and making sense of what happens after it. When people talk about trauma responses, most conversations tend to focus on fight, flight, or freeze. These are the ones we hear about most often. But there is another trauma response that doesn’t get nearly enough attention—the fawn response, which in everyday life can show up as people pleasing.
So let’s unpack this a little.
When we look at trauma through a nervous system lens, the fight, flight, and freeze responses are all about survival. Fight is when we mobilize for threat by becoming defensive, aggressive, or confrontational. The body prepares to attack or protect itself. Flight is when we mobilize by escaping—running away from danger, avoiding situations, or staying constantly busy as a way to stay ahead of perceived threats. Freeze is when the system becomes overwhelmed and shuts down. This can look like dissociation, numbness, paralysis, or feeling stuck. You can think of an animal pretending to be dead—immobility becomes the safest option when escape or defense feels impossible.
Each of these trauma responses is adaptive. They are not flaws or weaknesses; they are the nervous system doing exactly what it believes it needs to do to survive.
More recently, there has been increasing awareness around a fourth response: the fawn response. Fawning is when a person attempts to stay safe by appeasing, pleasing, or aligning with the perceived threat. This might look like being overly kind, agreeable, or attentive to someone who is abusive, unpredictable, or emotionally unsafe. While it can be confusing from the outside, this response makes a lot of sense when you understand trauma.
In abusive dynamics—whether emotional abuse, sexual abuse, narcissistic abuse, or other relational trauma—being agreeable can reduce harm. It can lower the risk of escalation. This is one reason we so often hear harmful questions in courts, media, or pop culture like, “Why were you nice to them?” or “Why did you stay?” These questions miss the point entirely. Fawning is not consent. It is not approval. It is survival.
The fawn response often shows up during the trauma itself. People pleasing, on the other hand, is frequently what remains afterward. It becomes the day-to-day expression of that same survival strategy once the immediate danger has passed.
In everyday life, people pleasing often looks like consistently putting your needs, emotions, and limits aside to care for others. It can look like saying yes when you mean no, minimizing your feelings, avoiding conflict at all costs, or feeling responsible for other people’s emotions. Over time, this can slide into codependent patterns, where your sense of safety, worth, or stability becomes overly tied to whether others are happy or satisfied.
Boundaries play a big role here. I often explain boundaries using the metaphor of a cell in the body. Healthy, flexible boundaries allow information, emotions, and connection to move in and out appropriately. Rigid boundaries don’t allow much in or out at all, which can look like emotional shutdown, extreme independence, or avoidance of closeness. Porous or diffuse boundaries allow too much in—other people’s emotions, needs, and expectations flood the system, disrupting balance and regulation. People pleasing is often associated with these porous boundaries.
This pattern commonly develops in response to developmental or relational trauma. Many people who struggle with people pleasing learned early on that paying close attention to others’ moods, needs, and cues was necessary for safety. This is especially common for those who grew up with emotionally unavailable caregivers, narcissistic parents, unpredictable environments, or ongoing abuse. As children, adapting to others kept them safe. When those children grow into adults, the pattern remains—even when it no longer serves them.
In some cases, trauma leads to hyper-independence—a complete emotional separation from others. In others, it leads to over-attachment and enmeshment, where identity becomes wrapped around caretaking and approval. Both are understandable trauma adaptations.
If you find yourself struggling with people pleasing, it can be helpful to get curious rather than self-critical. Ask yourself: Has this always been present in my life? When did I first learn that keeping others happy was important for my safety? Did I grow up feeling responsible for other people’s emotions? Did I learn that conflict or self-expression led to punishment, withdrawal, or harm?
In trauma-informed care, especially in individual therapy, relationship therapy, and modalities like EMDR therapy, somatic trauma therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and mindfulness-based approaches, the goal is not to eliminate these responses but to understand and gently update or rewire them. Healing involves helping the nervous system recognize that safety no longer depends on self-abandonment.
Whether you’re seeking trauma therapy in Westlake Village, Thousand Oaks, Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Oak Park, Ventura, Los Angeles, or anywhere in California, support can happen through both in-person sessions and online sessions. With the right support, people pleasing can soften—not by forcing boundaries or confrontation, but by building internal safety, self-trust, and aligned/authentic choice.
People pleasing was never a character flaw. It was a strategy. And strategies can be honored, understood, and gently transformed.
