Feminist and Strength-Perspective Alternatives to Fawning Diagnosis in Trauma Survivors: A Critical Review

The concept of fawning as an autonomic nervous system response to childhood trauma has grown in popularity over the past decade. Contemporary social workers and therapists use fawning concepts in psychoeducation with survivors to identify and correct dysfunctional responses to perceived threats. There has been very little critique of these practices, or the unintentional shame or self-blame that fawning concepts might cause. This article addresses four distinct problems in applications of fawning concepts in social work and therapy. These problems include contradictions with feminist understandings of perpetrator responsibility, disqualification of the intersectional contexts of survivor experience, the problematic connection of fawning and codependency concepts and the dismissal of positive relationship ethics demonstrated by survivors. Recommendations are made for alternative, less shaming practices with trauma survivors, more aligned with foundational social work and therapeutic theories such as feminism and strength perspective.