dr. ingrid clayton

Dr. Ingrid Clayton is a clinical psychologist, author, and speaker whose work centers on trauma, addiction, and the fawn response. She is best known for her writing on chronic people-pleasing and complex trauma, and for translating academic research into accessible language for survivors.

Her books, including work on fawning and relational trauma, give words to a survival style in which safety is sought through appeasement, compliance, and self-abandonment. Clayton draws on lived experience alongside clinical expertise, and her talks and interviews often explore how early relational wounds shape adult patterns of connection, recovery, and self-trust. Her perspective is widely referenced in the broader conversation on complex PTSD, codependency, and nervous-system healing.