Girls Gotta Eat — “Unpacking Fawning, the Misunderstood Trauma Response”

Guest: Dr. Ingrid Clayton
Hosts: Ashley Hesseltine & Raina Greenberg
Release Date: September 15, 2025

Episode Overview

In this powerful episode, Ashley and Raina welcome Dr. Ingrid Clayton, clinical psychologist and author of the new book Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves and How to Find Our Way Back, to explore “fawning” — the often overlooked trauma response that goes beyond people pleasing. With a blend of clinical expertise and lived experience, Dr. Clayton unpacks how fawning develops, how it impacts relationships, why it can be so hard to recognize in yourself, and how to start breaking the cycle. The conversation is raw, candid, and laced with the Girls Gotta Eat humor, even while discussing deeply personal and challenging subjects.

Important Discussion Segments & Timestamps

1. What is Fawning? (00:00, 31:46, 35:07)

• Definition and Context:
  Dr. Ingrid Clayton introduces fawning as a trauma response on par with fight, flight, and freeze, particularly common among those with a history of complex or relational trauma.

  “What most of us have known for a long time is fight, flight, and freeze. But fawning is this fourth response — this placating, shape-shifting adaptation to maintain connection and safety with those in power.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [00:00, 35:07]

• Why It Arises:
  Particularly in childhood or within systems of power, fawning is about ensuring safety and maintaining attachment when fighting or fleeing aren’t options.

  “We need our caregivers longer than any other species. We are dependent on them... Fawning became this way for me to navigate the daily, chronic, ongoing, pervasive experiences of not only threats to my sense of safety, but I had to maintain these relationships.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [35:07]

2. Fawning vs. People Pleasing & Agency (42:24)

• Key Differences:
  Fawning is not simply “being nice” or choosing to please people, but a reflexive, unconscious pattern that leads to self-abandonment.

  “The distinguishing factor between fawning and say, what we've called people pleasing... is that it is an unconscious reflex.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [39:02]

• Loss of Self:

  “Am I doing that because it's a conscious choice or am I doing that because the only safety and connection I've ever known has been to a degree where I don't really get to fully exist unless I'm prioritizing someone else's needs?” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [43:32]

3. Lived Experience and Clinical Story (31:46, 34:37)

• Dr. Clayton’s Personal Background:
  She shares growing up experiencing grooming and child abuse, and how that led to chronic fawning responses, both in childhood and later in dysfunctional adult relationships.

  “I've been trying to unpack what I now know is a chronic experience of the fawning trauma response my entire life, including getting three degrees in psychology.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [31:46]

• Resonating with Listeners:
  Ashley and Raina reflect on how these survival modes show up in everyday life—from racism and cultural assimilation to “going along” with group dynamics instead of standing up for yourself.

4. The Many Faces of Fawning (44:03, 55:00)

• How It Shows Up:
  • Conflict avoidance
  • Shrinking oneself in relationships
  • Always deferring to others
  • Repeated unhealthy relationship patterns, such as dating avoidant or emotionally unavailable people
• Chemistry vs. Unresolved Trauma:
  Dr. Clayton explains how, for people like her, the “spark” they feel is often unresolved trauma—not healthy attraction.

  “I didn't have any chemistry with healthy options... I believed what I was feeling — which now I know was unresolved trauma — was healthy chemistry.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [46:05]

5. Breaking the Cycle: “Unfawning” (76:26)

• It’s Not About Quick Fixes:
  Unfawning isn’t flipping a switch or “just setting boundaries.” It's slow work: learning to tolerate discomfort, acknowledging anxiety or terror at saying “no,” and regaining a sense of agency.

  “Unfawning to me is a radical paradigm shift… We’re not getting rid of these things; they are lifesaving. What we're doing is saying, we don't need to live there 24/7 in survival mode.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [76:34]

• First Steps:
  • Name the pattern in yourself
  • Gently get curious about the feelings that arise at the thought of saying “no” or asserting yourself
  • Small acts of autonomy, even if only in your imagination at first

6. High-Functioning Fawners (54:45)

• Success and Loneliness:
  People who fawn are often high achievers, thriving on pleasing others and winning validation — but still feeling empty, restless, or “missing in their own life.”

  “I was doing those things to almost become a different version of me. I was doing those things to override my wounding.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [53:55] “Faunas want me to like them as clients… Am I your favorite? …And I know this, too, from being a client in therapy.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [56:48]

7. Audience Takeaways & Real-Life Examples (68:10, 71:13)

• Day-to-day People Pleasing:
  The hosts discuss the everyday versions — friends who can’t say “no,” helping at their own expense, or staying in uncomfortable situations out of fear of being disliked.

  “I have a friend…self identifies as a people pleaser. She'll say… ‘They keep bothering me to go to this thing and I really don't want to go. But then she'll just go.’ ...and I'm like, then don't go?” — Raina Greenberg [68:10]

• The Importance of Naming the Pattern:
  Becoming aware of these patterns is itself powerful and disruptive — the first step to change.

8. Vulnerability and Supportive Relationships (61:29, 63:00)

• What Healing Looks Like:
  Dr. Clayton describes her now-healthy marriage, where vulnerability and mutual respect are the norm, not the exception.

  “What I discovered…when I brought my concerns to him, he did not gaslight me… He goes, ‘Oh, yeah, that makes sense that you would feel that way.’” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [61:43]

  • “You've always worked so hard to make the wrong person right, and now you're trying real hard to make the right person wrong.” — Dr. Clayton’s mentor, Bill [63:00]

Notable Quotes

• “Fawning becomes this really genius, adaptive way to navigate relationship to power.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [35:07]
• “[Fawning] is the trauma response that hides in plain sight. Because it does look like, even to the person who's experiencing it, like, I'm choosing to be here. I'm perfectly fine with what's happening.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [39:02]
• “A lot of the time, the only safety and connection I've ever known was at the expense of myself.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [43:32]
• “I've never heard anybody coin it as, ‘I didn't feel chemistry with a healthy relationship.’ And that is just so true.” — Raina Greenberg [48:00]
• “I think you named it exactly: anxiety…a lot of faunas are very anxious, but we don't know that we're anxious because we're so focused on what you're feeling and what you need.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [71:55]
• “Unfawning…is not about you're healed or unhealed. It's about slowly getting more comfortable with living in your own skin.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [76:34]

Highlights / Memorable Moments

• Ashley and Raina’s openness in sharing their own patterns:
  The hosts relate Dr. Clayton’s insights to their lives; Raina discusses increasing comfort with conflict and Ashley brings up practical friendship examples.
• Dr. Clayton’s metaphor of "winning therapy":
  Both hosts and Dr. Clayton commiserate on trying to “perform” in therapy instead of be vulnerable.

  “Faunas want me to like them as clients. Am I your favorite? …I wonder what it would be like if you weren't missing in your own life.” — Dr. Ingrid Clayton [56:48]

• Recognition of “chemistry” as a trauma reenactment:
  Both hosts are blown away by Dr. Clayton’s statement that what feels like “chemistry” can be the body recalling unresolved trauma, not true compatibility [46:05]

Actionable Takeaways

• Awareness is the first step:
  Recognize if you’re operating in fawn mode not by conscious choice, but reflexive fear or anxiety.
• Instead of forcing boundaries immediately, start by:
  • Noticing the feelings that arise when contemplating saying “no”
  • Identifying the root of your discomfort (is it fear of disconnection, loss of value, etc?)
  • Practicing small acts of saying “no” or advocating for yourself in low-stakes scenarios
• Understand that the goal isn’t to “cure” yourself but to get more comfortable living authentically, even when it’s uncomfortable

Additional Resources

• Dr. Ingrid Clayton’s Book:
  Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves and How to Find Our Way Back — out now.
• Find Dr. Ingrid Clayton:
  Website: ingridclayton.com
  Social: @IngridClaytonPhD

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