Do you find yourself minimizing your needs and adjusting to others to keep the peace?
Automatically agreeing to plans you don’t even like?
Apologizing when you weren’t wrong?
Does advocating for yourself or making a simple request feel so much harder than helping everyone around you?
If yes, then know you’re not alone. People-pleasing is a common pattern that, on the outside, looks like kindness, yet on the inside, it feels like drowning. Trying to keep everyone else comfortable and satisfied at your own expense does, sooner or later, come with the hidden mental health costs, such as constant anxiety, growing resentment, relationship burnout, and depression.
Where does it come from? How does it manifest? What are the ways for people-pleasers to recover and move from survival to self-trust?
Welcome to the psychology of people-pleasing.
What Is People-Pleasing?
People-pleasers are individuals with a behavioral tendency to constantly prioritize the expectations, emotions, and needs of others at the expense of their own, even to the point of self-neglect. This form of self-sacrifice is used as an attempt to prevent conflict, rejection, or abandonment.
People-pleasing can often look like:
- taking responsibility for how others feel
- apologizing excessively
- blaming yourself to keep the peace
- minimising one’s needs to avoid conflict and criticism
- over-performing and over-giving
- struggling with saying no and setting boundaries
- measuring self-worth through usefulness, approval, or external validation
The Hidden Costs of People-Pleasing
Let’s say you agree to attend a family gathering, even though you wanted to stay in after an exhausting week at work. “It’s not a big deal.” – you tell yourself. You power through the event only to find yourself emotionally drained, irritable, numb, or deeply sad — unsure why something “so small” affected you so deeply.
You promise yourself that next time it will be different, only to end up in the exact same spot, struggling with significant long-term effects of people-pleasing [1]:
| Emotional Pain | Relational Strain |
Mental Health Issues |
| consistent feelings of guilt for having needs | poor/lack of boundaries | low self-worth |
| suppressed anger | not asking for help and support | increased risk of depression |
| chronic stress | relationship burnout | perfectionism & self-criticism |
| fear of abandonment | inauthentic communication | growing resentment |
So where does this tendency come from? How does it usually start?
Causes of People-Pleasing
Beyond fight, flight, and freeze, trauma research recognizes a fourth response: fawning — now widely recognized in trauma psychology [2]. The fawn response boils down to appeasing others to avoid harm.
When we look at people-pleasing through this lens, it becomes clear that trying to will yourself to act differently doesn’t really work. That’s because people-pleasing isn’t a fully conscious decision — it’s a protection mechanism we learned early on to survive unsafe environments.
When emotional needs are ignored or minimized during development, children:
- internalize the belief that their voice doesn’t matter
- learn that expressing their needs leads to rejection
- equate social harmony with safety and their self-worth with being “low maintenance.”
People-pleasers usually also struggle with emotional dependency, where self-worth depends on closeness, approval, or external validation. Preserving such relationships comes at the cost of abandoning personal needs.
Healing People-Pleasing Patterns
Reducing people-pleasing is rarely about willpower alone, and it’s often most effective when explored with a mental health professional, since these patterns are usually deeply rooted in early childhood experiences and long-standing attachment dynamics [3].
For a child, staying agreeable may have been the safest option. As adults, the nervous system continues this pattern — even when danger is no longer present. The good news is – we can rewire our nervous systems by bringing safety into our bodies, our environments, and our closest relationships.
1. Nervous System Regulation
If you’re a people-pleaser, a good task to start with is to calm your anxious body, and cultivate practices that stimulate the vagus nerve and activate the “rest and digest” mode (parasympathetic nervous system), i.e.:
- slow diaphragmatic breathing,
- grounding exercises,
- gentle movement,
- mindful pauses
They help the body release the built-up tension, bring more ease and learn that it is safe to say no.
2. Working with Self-Worth
When self-worth is rooted internally, the need to earn approval decreases. Building up that confidence includes challenging beliefs like “I’m only valued if I give”. Doing so allows your relationships and environment to align with your true priorities.
3. Setting Boundaries with Yourself and Others
Recovery starts with internal boundaries — not overextending yourself or ignoring your limits — followed by external boundaries that create healthier, more balanced, equal relationships.
4. Replacing Self-Criticism with Self-Compassion
Change is easier when you support yourself with tenderness or kindness instead of letting your inner critic shame and bully you.
Try validating your emotions, reassuring yourself, and becoming a safe, encouraging presence for yourself.
5. Starting Psychotherapy
While self-reflection and small changes can be powerful, many people-pleasing patterns are deeply rooted and quite challenging to shift alone. Doing so with an experienced psychotherapist provides you with an opportunity to look at your tendencies, difficult emotions or painful thoughts in a supportive space. You get to explore where these behaviors come from, how they are maintained, and how to change them effectively.
In psychotherapy, you can:
- learn practical tools to calm your body and mind,
- work through underlying trauma or attachment wounds,
- address, challenge and restructure those unhealthy beliefs that link your self-esteem with over-extending yourself or external approval.
Whether you’re emotionally drained, trapped in toxic relationship dynamics, or simply wanting to show up as a more balanced and authentic you, working with a mental health professional can be very beneficial. You don’t have to navigate anxiety, relational stress, or depression in isolation.
To take this meaningful and courageous step toward healing, building self-trust, and creating relationships where your needs are respected – contact us here.
References
[1] Kuang, X., Li, H., Luo, W., Zhu, J., & Ren, F. (2025). The mental health implications of people-pleasing: Psychometric properties and latent profiles of the Chinese People-Pleasing Questionnaire. Psych Journal, 14(4), 500–512. https://doi.org/10.1002/pchj.70016
[2] Martin, M. (2025, June 5). Fawn response: The trauma survival pattern that’s mistaken for kindness. CPTSD Foundation.
[3] Haslam, Z., & Taylor, E. P. (2022). The relationship between child neglect and adolescent interpersonal functioning: A systematic review. Child Abuse & Neglect, 125, Article 105510. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2022.105510
