When Survival Looks Like Love — Dr. Ingrid Clayton
What if some of the ways you learned to love were actually ways you learned to survive?
Dr. Ingrid Clayton is a licensed clinical psychologist and the author of Fawning, Believing Me, and Recovering Spirituality. Through both her clinical work and her own lived experience, she explores the trauma responses and protective patterns that can quietly shape the way we relate to ourselves and the people we love.
In this episode, Robin and Ingrid explore fawning, the lesser-known fourth trauma response alongside fight, flight, and freeze, and how it can show up as people-pleasing, caretaking, appeasement, and self-abandonment in our closest relationships. They unpack why these patterns can be deeply adaptive in childhood and how they can follow us into adulthood long after the original danger has passed. They talk about the difference between performing love and actually experiencing it, and how addiction, spiritual bypassing, and even 12-step recovery can become ways of escaping what we feel rather than facing it.
Ingrid, sober since 1995, shares what it took to build the internal safety she never had growing up, not by finding a self that was buried, but by building one from the ground up.
At its core, this is a conversation about learning that real love does not require us to disappear, and that the relationships which let us become more fully ourselves may be where love becomes possible in the first place.
This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/loveready.
IN THIS EPISODE
03:46 Finding Her Voice and Her Path to Psychology
07:30 What Is Fawning?
13:20 How Our Past Shapes How We Relate
19:39 The Importance of a Compassionate Witness
26:55 When Healing Pursues You
32:03 Performing Love vs. Experiencing Love
36:31 Alcohol, Trauma, and Sobriety
44:35 Spiritual Bypassing
52:13 What Healing Really Takes
01:00:37 Fawning in Our Relationships
01:06:01 How Healing Changes the Way We Love
QUOTES
"How could I know what real love was if I was never even there to experience it?" – Dr. Ingrid Clayton
"I would rather have me in my life than abandon me one more day for anybody else." – Dr. Ingrid Clayton
"I am wired to want to love well. And I think we all are." – Robin Ducharme
ABOUT THE GUEST
Ingrid Clayton is a licensed clinical psychologist with a Master’s degree in transpersonal psychology and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. She has maintained a private practice in Los Angeles for over seventeen years, supporting individuals in healing trauma and reclaiming their sense of self. Her work has been featured in Oprah Daily, The New York Times, Women’s Health, and Forbes. She is the author of Fawning, Believing Me, and Recovering Spirituality, and is known for bringing clarity, accessibility, and humanity to conversations about relational trauma and healing.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ingridclaytonphd/
Website: https://www.ingridclayton.com/
GET THE REAL LOVE READY BOOK
Real Love Ready: A Guide to Relational Literacy is a clear, compassionate guide to the knowledge, skills, and daily practices that help us love with greater intention, truth, and heart.
https://geni.us/RealLoveReadyBook
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