The “Fix” Response: Beyond Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn | Filgood Therapy

By Ojasvi Bhardwaj, Registered Psychotherapist

Most of us have heard of the four classic trauma responses: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.

These are the ways our nervous system tries to keep us safe when life feels overwhelming or threatening. Simply naming these patterns has helped countless people feel seen and less alone in their struggles.

But over time, in my therapy work, I’ve noticed something else quietly showing up from the start, a pattern that doesn’t quite fit into this familiar list. I call it the “fix” response.

What Is This “Fix” Response?

Fixing is the deep, often unconscious urge to repair or correct what feels broken. Whether inside ourselves or in the people and situations around us. It’s a way to calm that painful feeling of being unsafe, unworthy, or just not enough.

• Sometimes, fixing turns inward: pushing ourselves to be better, doing more, trying to heal or perfect who we are is often accompanied by harsh self-judgment or relentless productivity.

• Other times, fixing turns outward: taking on too much responsibility for others, trying to smooth things over, control outcomes, or caretake to avoid facing our own difficult feelings.

At first, this impulse can soothe the storm inside. But more often, it leaves us tired, stuck, and maybe even ashamed for not being able to stop.

How Does “Fix” Fit with Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn?

Each trauma response is a different survival dance our nervous system learned long ago:

Like the others, fix isn’t a choice—it’s an automatic, protective reflex shaped by our past experiences. Where fawn seeks safety through pleasing, fix seeks safety through repairing.

The Curtain of Judgment Behind Fixing

Behind the fix response often lies a curtain of judgment. It can feel like this invisible barrier separates us from truly accepting ourselves or others. The urge to fix whether ourselves or those around us can arise from harsh inner critics that say, You’re not enough. This isn’t right. It needs to be better.

Judgment itself isn’t inherently bad, it can be a natural part of self-awareness and learning. But within the fix response, judgment tends to put a harsh spotlight on painful memories, difficult emotions, and negative thoughts. These memories and feelings create the backbone of the fix response, fuelling the urgent need to repair or control as a way to manage the discomfort. When judgment highlights these inner struggles, it can intensify the sense of brokenness or “not enough,” trapping us further in the cycle of fixing rather than inviting gentle acceptance and healing.

Recognizing this curtain is itself a healing step, allowing us to gently draw it aside and invite kindness and understanding to come in.

You Might Recognize Fixing in These Ideas

Even though “fix” isn’t usually named as a trauma response, it’s woven throughout many familiar psychological experiences:

• The perfectionism and self-criticism that tell us we’re broken and must endlessly fix to be okay.

• Codependency and over-functioning, where fixing others feels like the only way to keep relationships stable, even if it costs us dearly.

• Shame regulation—fixing can be a way to quiet the deep ache of feeling not enough.

• Attachment wounds, where we hope that if we can fix someone else, they won’t leave us feeling abandoned.

• Difficulty in processing the primary emotions as they can be too much.

  
  

Why Giving Fix a Name Can Be Healing

When we recognize fix as a survival strategy not a moral failing or flaw something softens inside. Compassion can grow where shame once took root. This response protected us once, and now it’s trying its best to help, even if it sometimes causes pain.

From Fixing to Growth: Reframing with Compassion

I gently try to introduce the possibility of the fix response stemming out of the wound of brokenness or “not being good enough” to coming from a deeper place of accountability, growth, and personal responsibility.

When those quiet inner questions arise

"What could I do differently?"

"How can I show up with more care?" and these reflections land not on a rocky riverbed of shame but on a soft riverbed of compassion, the energy of fixing transforms. Alchemy!!

It becomes a healthy, life-affirming part of the internal landscape: a way to learn, evolve, and lovingly take responsibility for change without self-judgment. This kind of fixing is no longer about proving worthiness, but about tending to oneself with kindness and curiosity. We also work on slowing down in our bodies as "fix response" sometimes can be coded with urgency.

What Happens When We Slow Down?

Bringing gentle awareness to the fix response helps us pause before rushing in to repair. It invites questions like:

• Am I trying to fix because I feel broken inside?

• Am I fixing others to avoid feeling my own vulnerability?

• What might I discover if I sit with discomfort instead of immediately fixing it?

In these moments, healing begins—not by erasing fix, but by befriending it, with curiosity, kindness, and choice.

Author:

Ojasvi Bhardwaj

Registered Psychotherapist, MScA, MSc, BSc

@filgoodtherapy