Chase, Hide, Fight and Fold

When a Core Need isn't reliably met, people find a way to be okay anyway. Our model sees four directions that way can take: Chase, Hide, Fight and Fold.

Chase is trying harder: pleasing, perfecting, checking. Hide is pulling away: going quiet, numbing, needing no one. Fight is taking over: anger, rules, being in charge. Fold is giving in: shrinking, appeasing, going along.

Each one carries a gift and a cost. Chasing brings effort and attentiveness. Hiding brings calm under pressure. Fighting brings strength and decisiveness. Folding brings empathy and peacekeeping. The costs tend to show up later, in tiredness, loneliness, strained relationships or a voice that has gone quiet.

Most people use more than one, usually a main strategy and a backup, and which one fires depends on the moment. You use a strategy. You are not the strategy.

Each page below explains one strategy: how it looks in daily life, what it protects, what it costs and how it changes with the need underneath. If you're new here, How adaptation works explains where strategies come from. Or start with the one you just recognised, perhaps Chase.