"Tending and Befriending" Is the 4th Survival Strategy

Understanding survival responses and how they activate biologically without thinking can help reduce the shame experienced by many trauma survivors. The survival responses include fight, flight, and freeze.

It is proposed that the fourth survival response be "friend" rather than "fawn" based upon the theory of "tend and befriend," a survival strategy referring to the protection of offspring—tending—and seeking out the social group for mutual defense—befriending. "Tending and befriending" was first described by Dr. Shelley Taylor. Taylor does not explain this response as maladaptive but as a biological survival response.

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