The Four F’s refer to four possible means of response to danger. These are sometimes called trauma responses. Some people use the term trauma responses to mean a long term response, whereas others use the term to mean an immediate response to a traumatic situation. If you ask me, both of these things are true and there’s simply a spectrum from immediate to long term.
Today, we will be looking at the immediate kind.
What are the Four F’s?
The Four F’s are:
Fight
Flight
Freeze
Fawn
We’ve probably all heard of ‘fight or flight’, right? If a bear jumped out of nowhere, ready to attack – would you stand and fight, or get away as fast as you can?
Over the years, we’ve grown to acknowledge ‘freeze’ as a similarly common response – perhaps you simply stay planted on the ground, staring at the bear, unable to move.
And, more recently, we’ve found a fourth F: the fawn response. The term ‘fawn’ was coined by Pete Walker, and is considered in response to ongoing trauma. Maybe you don’t fight, or run, or do you best deer-in-headlights impression and instead, you try to please the bear – offer him some food – to plead to him not to hurt you.
Why do the Four F’s exist?
Trauma responses exist because they have a benefit. When we think of trauma, and conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), we often think of maladaptive responses to benign situations. And that’s true – that’s part of what makes these things mental health conditions.
But it’s not where they start.
So, where do these responses come from?
Not to sound cliché, but all roads lead back to evolution. For responses to be conserved – that is, they persist throughout time – they must have an evolutionary benefit. Survival is a base instinct, and staying alive and safe is ingrained in us.
So, picture yourself back with the bear.
Fight:
If you find yourself faced with a black bear charging at you, the standard advice is to fight back. Black bears often fake-charge, and fighting back can get them to back down. You may be advised to make yourself look as big as possible, and make loud, growling noises to scare them off. In this situation, fight is the best response for survival.
Flight:
Let’s imagine we’re out camping, and we see what looks like a crowd of bears up ahead. We can’t identify what type of bear it is, and we know we should avoid startling a bear. So, what do we do here? Well, we don’t physically run – that’d be similar to running from a dog; they’ll chase you. But we do need to get away. Walk in another direction. Flee the situation. Here, flight is the best response for survival.
Freeze:
If you encounter a brown bear, fighting is not typically advised. Generally, brown bear attacks are defensive. Instead, standard advice is to lay down – play dead. Here, you freeze laying down on the ground, with your hands protecting the back of your neck. They won’t attack if you’re dead. This time, freeze is the best response for survival.
Fawn:
Okay, so fawn is admittedly a little hard to write for a bear encounter, but here we try our best to avoid descriptions which are highly likely to be triggering. So, sticking with bears, let’s imagine we’re trapped in enchanted forest and faced with a cartoon vampire-bear. This bear can talk, and says he’s going to drain all of your blood and then eat you. You know that you have food in your bag, and that you can survive some blood loss. So, you tell this vampire-bear that he can have some of your blood and the food in your bag. Once he’s done, still unable to get away, you instead say you’ll continue to let him have some of your blood and find him more food, so long as he lets you stay alive. In this situation, fawn is the most beneficial response for survival.
Disclaimer: Please don’t get your bear advice from me, these are just meant as illustrative scenarios. I am in no way a bear expert.
Back to reality
Thank you for bearing with me (I immediately apologise…pun still intended).
Of course, in real life we’re probably not talking about bear encounters (most of the time) when discussing trauma responses.
But, the bear examples can be useful as these responses come from a place of survival. These responses still exist because they can each lead to survival. Each response has it’s time and place.
The fight response persists, because people fought predators and survived. Just as the flight response exists, as successfully fleeing allowed people to survive. Freezing and fawning similarly exist, because people froze or fawned and survived.
Trauma responses are all about survival.
So, what’s the problem?
The problem comes when these responses become maladaptive – when the response doesn’t match the situation.
A common one is excessive freezing at loud noises, beyond that of a startle response. Or, perhaps, someone may become agitated and seem angry in response to a loud noise. Another person may run as fast as they can to get away from the loud noise, whereas someone else may apologise upon being startled by the noise.
Although most people have a tendency towards one response or another, we have the capacity for all four responses within us. And when they fit the situation – that’s great, they keep us alive.
But when they don’t? They can limit our lives, keeping us trapped in a constant state of alert-fear.
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