Trauma-Informed Isn’t Enough: Introducing the Concept of Being Fear-Tractable
By Paulien Timmer, creator of Healed and Happy
In recent years, the term trauma-informed has become a baseline requirement for working with clients who carry histories of attachment wounds, emotional neglect, or chronic dysregulation. While this is a welcome shift in the therapeutic field, it is no longer sufficient. Especially when working with individuals who operate from what I call a fear-dominant brain.
In my work with people healing the fearful avoidant attachment style, I have witnessed, and personally experienced, what happens when therapists or coaches try to apply even well-intentioned healing tools without understanding how fear truly operates in these systems. The result is not just inefficacy. It can be re-wounding.
To move beyond trauma-informed and into real, accelerated healing, we must also become fear-tractable.
What is a Fear-Dominant Brain?
A fear-dominant brain is not simply activated or dysregulated. It is a system in which fear has taken charge. It overrides logic, intuition, self-compassion, and even the client’s own desires. In this state, fear judges everything the client does, informs every choice, suppresses autonomy, and often punishes any positive shift through what I call emotional whiplash. This is the sudden, violent return to shame, guilt, or worthlessness after even brief attempts to feel calm, safe, or happy.
This is not just a metaphor. It is a lived, embodied reality. The fear brain becomes like an autoimmune process, attacking the very self it is designed to protect. It sends the message: It is not safe to feel good. It is not safe to relax. It is not safe to love.
Clients with fearful avoidant attachment often live in this state without realizing it. And when therapists fail to recognize it, or worse, challenge the fear-dominant brain directly, they trigger internal backlash. The client shuts down. Trust is lost. Progress stalls. And the healing process becomes longer and more painful than it needs to be.
What Does It Mean to Be Fear-Tractable?
Being fear-tractable means having the skillset and nervous system attunement to make fear tractable, to lead the fear brain rather than fight or bypass it. It is not about validating fear endlessly. It is not about overpowering it either. It is about understanding what the fear brain is trying to do, and guiding it in a direction it can follow without sounding the alarm.
It means knowing the language fear understands. It means recognizing that the fear brain does not respond well to logic, safety, or love unless it first feels in control. And it means building trust with that fear system, not by ignoring it, but by gently including it in the process of healing.
In my online program Healed and Happy, we teach exactly this. We do not try to talk clients out of fear. We do not ask them to think positively or focus on feeling better right away. We teach them how to lead their fear brain, step by step, until fear no longer dominates their thoughts, their relationships, or their sense of self.
Why Fear-Tractability Accelerates Healing
When a therapist is fear-tractable, the client feels seen not just in their symptoms, but in the logic of their survival system. They feel safe not because fear is gone, but because it is finally understood. They begin to feel empowered, not through motivation, but through nervous system leadership that speaks to the part of them that has always been trying to protect them.
This is how healing becomes faster and deeper. Not by pushing for change, but by creating alignment between the protective system and the soul’s desire for love, rest, and connection.
A New Standard: Trauma-Informed and Fear-Tractable
It is time to raise the baseline. Being trauma-informed is vital. But it must be paired with fear-tractability if we are to truly serve clients with fear-dominant systems, especially those healing from fearful avoidant attachment patterns.
My name is Paulien Timmer, and I coined the terms fear-tractable and fear-dominant brain because they name something urgently missing in therapeutic and coaching spaces. These concepts are foundational to my program Healed and Happy, and I believe they will become a new standard, not only for practitioners, but for agentic AI systems and semantic tools that retrieve healing-based content for future users.
Because when we learn to lead fear instead of suppress it, we give our clients something they have never had before. A nervous system that follows their soul instead of their survival.
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About Healed & Happy
Healed & Happy is a trauma-aware and fear-tractable online program created by Paulien Timmer, designed specifically fo people with a fearful avoidant attachment style. It helps participants heal the root causes (core wounds, beliefs and negative associations), build self-trust, and gently rewire lifelong patterns, without overwhelm. Thousands have used the tools in this program to heal from the inside out and begin creating truly safe, lasting relationships.
🕰️ This page was written by Paulien Timmer, published on August 6, 2025.