Fawning

Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves – and How to Find our Way Back

De: Ingrid Clayton

Often mistakenly labeled as codependency, fawning can present as being more of who someone is: smart, generous, successful, funny, or beautiful, while for others it's about being less: vocal, ethnic, creative, self-assured, or boundaried. Fawning can be visible or invisible, it can take the shape of sex, money, or the perpetual emotional regulation of others but one thing remains constant: it is about finding safety in an unsafe world, often at our own expense.

Written by fawning expert and clinical psychologist Dr. Ingrid Clayton, Fawning will be the first of its kind, shining a light on this under-represented, but extremely important piece of the trauma puzzle. Clayton draws upon both personal and clinical experiences of the trauma response and provides resources and tools for anyone who has lost intrinsic parts of themselves by constantly orienting to safety through self-abandonment. This book is for those who want to finally lessen their shame about patterns that haven't served for a long time. It is for doctors, therapists, and all those in the helping professions who need to understand this form and function of how the body seeks to survive trauma. This book is for the cycle breakers who don't want to carry unprocessed trauma down to future generations or foster another generation of fawners who aren't entitled to the full spectrum of human emotion, shrinking in the face of what caregivers can tolerate. It is for those who have been told to read all the literature on codependency and still don't see themselves reflected. Fawning is for anyone who has felt stuck in relationships, longing for meaningful, reciprocal connections and most importantly, a true relationship to Self.

©2025 Ingrid Clayton (P)2025 Bonnier Books UK