"Tending and Befriending" Is the 4th Survival Strategy

Understanding survival responses and how they activate biologically without thinking can help reduce the shame experienced by many trauma survivors. The survival responses include fight, flight, and freeze.

Psychotherapist Peter Walker created the term "fawn" response as the fourth survival strategy to describe a specific type of instinctual response resulting from childhood abuse and complex trauma. Walker asserts that trauma-based codependency is learned very early when a child gives up protesting abuse to avoid parental retaliation, thereby relinquishing the ability to say "no" and behave assertively. He further states that fawning behaviors can be a maladaptive survival or coping response developed to cope with a nonnurturing or abusive parent.¹

Instinctual Responses of Fight, Flight, and Freeze and Human Survival

The word "fawn" is often ascribed to the female gender. Naming a survival response "fawning" and stating it is maladaptive can perpetuate sexual stereotypes by assigning a pejorative judgment toward females who "fawn." When instinctual responses of fight, flight, and freeze are described as instinctual, somatic-based trauma therapists do not assume that the survival responses are maladaptive as they were initiated for self-defense and survival. These responses are biological. If "fawning" is an instinctual survival response, describing it as "maladaptive" could serve to shame those who may have begun this survival response to survive a traumatic, abusive childhood. The word "maladaptive" itself assumes intentionality of behavior, and, according to Oxford Dictionary, maladaptive means having an adaptation (= changed feature) unsuitable for particular conditions.²

The Adaptive "Friend" Response

It is proposed that the fourth survival response be "friend" rather than "fawn" based upon the theory of "tend and befriend," a survival strategy referring to the protection of offspring—tending—and seeking out the social group for mutual defense—befriending. "Tending and befriending" was first described by Dr. Shelley Taylor. Taylor does not explain this response as maladaptive but as a biological survival response. Her research found women more commonly used it, but it could be used by others identifying as another gender.³

Taylor discovered that females release oxytocin while "tending and befriending." The hormone oxytocin may override the fight-or-flight response, resulting in an individual tending to the children and affiliating with others for protection. Accordingly, if, traditionally, women were more often the protectors of their offspring and the social group, this may have developed biologically to contribute to the survival of our species.

Many sexual assault survivors use "tending and befriending" strategies to prevent harm and increase their chances of escape and survival. People, regardless of their gender identification, may identify with "tending and befriending." Learning this can help individuals identify with the survival response of tending and befriending and feel less shame and guilt about trying to befriend their aggressor. In addition, when an aggressor experiences a person in the state of tending and befriending, oxytocin may also be released in the aggressor, thereby increasing the person's chances of survival.

Humans are designed for survival, to fight, flee, and freeze, and to "tend and befriend." The thought that survival strategies are adaptive rather than maladaptive during a traumatic experience can change a person's worldview of their lived experience. Looking through what happened to them from the lens of biology rather than pathology can help survivors of traumatic experiences view their lives and reactions from a new perspective. Survivors have shared a sense of relief with the understanding of this trauma-informed perspective.

Reducing Shame by Understanding Human Biology of Survival

Our behaviors are sometimes directly related to strategies we learned as young children to protect ourselves, our siblings, and our caregivers. When we understand our reactions are common reactions to abuse or extraordinary events, we can begin the journey of healing with a fresh perspective. For many survivors, this lightens the load physically, emotionally, and cognitively as self-blame may decrease as one reflects on the biology of survival.

Trauma happens to the body, and somatic-based therapists bring all portals into the therapeutic environment—cognitive, emotional, and biological—into their healing interventions. The Four F's of trauma can be reimagined as fight, flight, freeze, and friend.

Hope in Healing

There is hope for healing because we know through neuroscience and the concept of neuroplasticity that the brain can change. If the brain can change, so can the behaviors that can cause suffering that grew out of childhood experiences. Behaviors that grew out of survival strategies are about being human and the design of our biology.

Many trauma therapists have incorporated the body into their interventions to help clients recover from traumatic experiences. Examples include Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and the Trauma Resiliency Model.