The Four Fs of Complex Trauma: Recognizing and Healing our Survival Strategies

Astrid Burke, MHC

Many of us are familiar with the term “fight or flight,” a classic model for understanding how individuals cope differently to actual or perceived threats. Over time, however, this black-and-white model has been expanded to give space to additional, more nuanced responses to trauma. Pete Walker MA, author of “Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving,” outlines the concepts of “freeze” and “fawn” as additional survival strategies for Complex PTSD, a condition developed from long-term, repeated trauma such as childhood abuse, ongoing sexual trauma, living in war-torn areas, for example. By exploring our own survival strategies, we can gain insight into how these strategies may have served to protect us in the past but are no longer useful and can be modified and healed to better suit our present. 

Fight

The goal of the “fight” is self-preservation and protection from pain through conflict. A “fight” response may feel like a rush of adrenaline, a desire to defend ourselves and feel empowered at all costs, picking fights, or yelling at or controlling others. To an observer, it may look like an explosive temper, angry or aggressive outbursts, bullying, and may be mislabeled as conduct disorder in children or narcissism in adults.

Flight

The intent of “flight” is protection from pain through escape. A “flight” response can make it difficult to slow down and rest. It may feel like you’re constantly rushing, worrying, panicking, or micromanaging. Someone experiencing this response might look like a workaholic, over-achiever, or perfectionist. They may also physically leave a space when they feel threatened and hide in a bathroom or car, or leave social situations by “ghosting” people or avoiding difficult conversations. 

Freeze

“Freeze” types attempt to self-preserve though dissociation. When we dissociate, it can have the effect of spacing out and feeling detached from the world around us (derealization) or from ourselves (depersonalization). A “freeze” response can be characterized by feeling immobilized by stress, self-isolating, struggling to make or act on decisions, passivity, feeling frozen in a low-risk state making it frightening to step outside of our routine or set new goals. 

Fawn

“Fawning” is an attempt at self-preservation and safety through placation. This might look like people-pleasing, flattering others to avoid conflict, difficulty saying no, feeling afraid to share what we think or feel, concern with how others perceive us, anticipating others’ needs or studying their interests or patterns to fit in with or be useful to them. The belief behind the “fawn” response is, “If I can appease this person, I can be safe from conflict or pain.”

Honoring and Healing our Survival Strategies

When learning about our coping skills, it’s important not to judge them or feel shame around them, but rather recognize that they were, at one point, the best way we knew how to cope. They got us this far! But our trauma responses don’t realize that time has passed, that we’re no longer in danger and that our responses may not be appropriate or serving us anymore. Working with a therapist, we can modify our automatic survival strategies by redirecting our energy, grieving our trauma, challenging our inner self-critics, and learning new coping skills that fit where we are now. This may look like practicing mindfulness and appropriately directing rage to the perpetrators of our trauma if we’re in “fight,” practicing introspection and slowing down the break-neck speed of “flight,” learning skills to cope with dissociation if we’re in “freeze,” or practicing authenticity and self-expression in we’re in “fawn.”