Methodology
How this quiz was built
The 4F Trauma Type quiz is a structured self-reflection tool: forty first-person moments, rated 1–5, scored into a report on which survival response your body reaches for first. It is not a validated clinical instrument. This page explains both halves of that sentence in plain language: how the quiz actually works, and exactly what it does and does not claim.
Last updated: July 2026
What this quiz is
A free, 40-item somatic self-description based on psychotherapist Pete Walker's 4F model of survival responses (fight, flight, freeze, fawn) from Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving (2013).
Each item drops you into one specific moment: a manager adds a deadline to a full week, a friend asks for help moving, the bill lands at a group dinner. The item then describes one automatic first move, and you rate how much that move sounds like you, from "Not at all" (1) to "Exactly me" (5). The whole thing takes about 8–12 minutes.
What it maps is your default reach: the response your nervous system goes to first under stress. Not the behavior you would choose on reflection, and not how far along you are in recovery. Those are different questions, and this tool does not pretend to answer them.
What it does not claim
- It is not a diagnostic instrument. A result is not a diagnosis of CPTSD, PTSD, or any other condition, and it is not a verdict on you.
- It is not psychometrically validated. No reliability studies, no validity studies, no factor analysis. The items have not been peer reviewed and are not published in the research literature.
- It is not therapy, and it does not assess or treat a mental-health condition. Thawing is a small, independent project, not a clinic.
- It is not quoted from an existing questionnaire. The somatic statements, type descriptions, and scoring language are original adaptations written for this tool, grounded in Walker's model.
The standard the quiz is written to instead is felt accuracy: a report should be specific enough that you can recognize yourself in it, and concrete enough that you can disagree with it. Whether it meets that bar is yours to judge, which is the point of a mirror.
Is there a validated 4F test?
Fight, flight, and freeze have decades of research behind them, and validated questionnaires exist in the clinical literature for related constructs: threat responses, dissociation, interpersonal patterns. Fawn is younger as a named concept. Pete Walker introduced the term in 2013, and as of mid-2026 we are not aware of a widely adopted, peer-reviewed instrument that measures all four responses together as Walker describes them.
So the honest routing is this: if you need a validated assessment (for treatment planning, for research, for anything with clinical stakes), that is a job for a licensed clinician and the instruments they administer. If you want a structured, concrete way to notice your own automatic pattern and put language to it, that is the job this quiz was built for.
How the forty items were written
- One scene, one first move. Every item is a specific situation plus the automatic move that happens before deliberate choice. There are no trait adjectives ("I am assertive") that force you to average over your whole life.
- The default, not the override. Items avoid "I caught myself" and "I almost" framing, because overriding a pattern is a different fact than not having it. The quiz wants the reach, not the recovery work layered on top.
- Stuck forms and healthy forms. Each response is covered by both kinds of moments: the response running as a survival reflex, and the same energy with room to choose. That split is what lets the report show direction, not just intensity.
- Shuffled order. Items are shuffled so you cannot anchor by category and answer the pattern instead of the moment.
How it is scored
Your 1–5 ratings turn into a per-type evidence score: strong endorsements of a type's items count most, middling answers count a little, low answers count against. The result then takes one of three honest shapes:
- Dominant, when one response clearly leads.
- Co-dominant, when two responses run close together.
- Open, when no response clears a minimum evidence floor. Open means no marked response pattern showed up in this sitting. The quiz reports that plainly instead of forcing the nearest label.
Alongside the headline result, the report shows each response's stuck form next to its healthy form, so what you get reads as a pattern with a direction rather than a box you were sorted into.
Choosing the right kind of tool
| This quiz | A validated clinical instrument | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Self-recognition: noticing your default survival response and putting language to it | Measurement: diagnosis support, treatment planning, research |
| What you get | A narrative report with stuck and healthy forms, plus your full data to take with you | Standardized scores, interpreted by a professional |
| Validation | Not validated; written to a felt-accuracy standard you judge yourself | Reliability and validity studies in the research literature |
| Covers fawn | Yes, as one of four first-class responses | Depends on the instrument; many predate the term |
| Access | Free, in the browser, no account | Usually through a clinician, a service, or a study |
Neither replaces a therapist. If your results stir something up, or you already know this territory is heavy for you, a trauma-informed professional is the right next step, and the report is designed to be brought along.
Your results leave with you
The report ends with three exports, and they exist so the result is yours rather than this site's:
- Download Report PDF: the full report, paginated for printing or sharing.
- Download Results JSON: machine-readable, with named per-type scores, the strong/partial/low counts behind them, and your raw 1–5 answers.
- Copy Summary: the result as plain text you can paste anywhere.
Bring the PDF to a therapist, or hand the JSON or the summary to an AI assistant for a second read. Nothing about the report requires coming back here.
Who is behind it
Thawing is a small, independent project. The quiz and the articles around it are maintained by Matthew Hou, who writes lived-experience field notes on the 4F responses and is about a decade into his own recovery. He is not a clinician. The framework is Pete Walker's; the book is Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, and it is the right next read if the model itself interests you.
Your data
The short version: answers are stored to improve the items, email is optional, nothing is sold. The full, plain-language account of what is kept and how to have it deleted is on the privacy page.