Covertly Encouraging Submissiveness at Work? The Unseen Expense of Overindulgent Pleasing of Others' Needs
In the insurance property adjusting firm where Jack and Jill work, their competence is undeniable. However, their behavior is creating a toxic environment due to their relationship with a bully supervisor, a dynamic reminiscent of domestic abuse victims.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Ingrid Clayton suggests that Jack and Jill may have learned to please and appease due to exposure to domestic trauma. This behavior, known as 'fawning,' is the subject of Dr. Clayton's book, "Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves - and How to Find the Way Back."
Fawning is associated with chronic stress, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Fawners put themselves last and the needs of others first, which eventually eats at them. Saying "no" can be virtually impossible for fawners, as they are unable to set boundaries to requests. Fawners avoid conflict at all costs, allowing small issues to grow massively.
Strategies to help individuals dealing with fawning behavior in a toxic work environment due to past domestic abuse focus on trauma-informed therapeutic approaches, building assertiveness, and establishing healthy boundaries.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps identify and challenge negative thought patterns that drive fawning behavior, promotes healthier self-perceptions, and teaches assertiveness and boundary-setting skills to prioritize one's own wellbeing rather than people-pleasing or conflict avoidance.
Trauma-informed therapies such as somatic therapy, trauma-informed yoga, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), and Internal Family Systems (IFS) work to regulate the nervous system, reprocess past traumas, and reconnect individuals with bodily sensations, thereby reducing the automatic fawn response which is rooted in survival mechanisms shaped by past abuse.
Setting healthy boundaries, learning to say no, recognizing personal needs, and expressing them respectfully supports reclaiming control over one's interactions. This reduces emotional exhaustion and unhealthy dependence on others’ approval, common in fawning behavior.
Building assertiveness and communication skills develops clear, respectful communication, helping individuals assert their desires and limits in the workplace, which is critical in toxic environments where fawning leads to self-neglect, burnout, and exploitation.
Education and support, understanding fawning as a survival response to trauma, helps reduce self-blame and shame. Group support, trauma education, and recognizing trauma bonds and codependency patterns empower individuals to reclaim their voices and trust their instincts.
Mindfulness and grounding techniques help regulate emotional responses in the moment, reducing automatic appeasement tendencies that come from hypervigilance and anxiety inherent in trauma responses.
In practice, a combination of these strategies under trauma-informed professional guidance offers the best pathway for individuals to overcome fawning behaviors triggered by past domestic abuse, especially in challenging work environments.
| Strategy | Focus & Benefit | |----------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) | Challenges negative beliefs, teaches assertiveness | | Trauma-informed therapies | Regulates nervous system, processes trauma | | Setting healthy boundaries | Empowers saying no, protects personal needs | | Assertiveness training | Improves communication and self-advocacy | | Education and support | Reduces shame, builds empowerment | | Mindfulness and grounding | Calms emotional reactivity and impulse to appease others |
These strategies specifically address the neurobiological and psychological roots of fawning derived from past trauma, helping individuals gain agency in toxic workplaces while healing from their abuse history.
[1] Clayton, I. (2021). Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves - and How to Find the Way Back. New Harbinger Publications. [2] Harned, M. S. (2018). Somatic Experiencing: A Practitioner's Guide to Healing Trauma and Developing Resilience. W.W. Norton & Company. [3] Levine, P. A., & Kline, A. M. (2010). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences. North Atlantic Books. [5] Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.
- Clinical psychologist Dr. Ingrid Clayton's book, "Fawning: Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves - and How to Find the Way Back," sheds light on the science behind fawning behavior in the context of workplace-wellness, health-and-wellness, and mental-health.
- In her book, Dr. Clayton links fawning behavior to domestic abuse, suggesting that it could stem from exposure to such trauma in one's family-dynamics and relationships.
- Education and self-development, specifically understanding fawning as a survival response to trauma, is crucial in reducing self-blame and shame, thereby facilitating career-development and skills-training.
- Strategies for dealing with fawning behavior in a toxic work environment involve trauma-informed therapies like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and somatic therapy, which focus on regulating the nervous system, processing trauma, and reconnecting individuals with their bodily sensations.
- Building assertiveness and communication skills, a key aspect of education-and-self-development, is essential in toxic work environments, as it helps individuals express their desires and limits, fostering relationships based on respect and mutual understanding.
