Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn

When used as a healthy response to danger, the 4 F’s can insulate a person from harm, but in a maladapted form, these responses serve to perpetuate dysfunction in both internal self and external relationships. With women, the patterns are exacerbated by additional factors.

There are four basic defensive structures that develop out of our instinctive responses to perceived danger — Fight, Flight, Freeze, or…