11 Dec Let’s Explore People Pleasing – Have You Ever Noticed Your Stress Response to Various Perceived Threats, Often Default into People-Pleasing Tendencies?

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What exactly are people-pleasing tendencies?

People pleasing is a defence mechanism where an individual attempts to appease or please the threatening person or situation as a way to protect themselves. Usually, it involves the individual trying to avoid confrontation by complying, or attempting to be agreeable, even if this is not in their interest. Your face is saying yes, sure, no problem — but your mental health is saying help! This will be a useful read to explore how to let go of being a people-pleaser and stay true to your own very valid needs.

This may be something you notice in your life, or perhaps it is a bit new to you, but you have been on the receding end. This response is discussed in greater detail in this blog, in the context of the fight-flight-freeze response. However, it is extending to a fourth response known as fawning. 

How do people pleasing impact the body physiologically?

Faced with a threat, one’s automatic response can be fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Fawning behaviour is a trauma response often resulting from complex trauma or due to traumatic events from earlier years. Fawning behaviour is an unhealthy defence mechanism involving people-pleasing behavior due to past trauma experiences in an attempt to avoid abuse. People-pleasing can become a problem when it is compulsive and to the detriment of one’s self-interest or self-care needs. It is important to be mindful of our emotions and identify when we are in the fear response. While fear is a healthy emotion that can help protect us, we do not want it to control our actions. Identifying and acknowledging our emotions can be helpful, and seeking trauma-informed therapy can also be beneficial.

Delving into topics like people-pleasing, perfectionism, and the fawn response is indeed like unravelling a complex and multifaceted puzzle. In this blog, while we try to capture some common themes explored in therapy, we can only scratch the surface of these deep-seated behavioural patterns.

How can one spot a people pleaser in oneself?

While wanting to make our friends and family happy is natural, people-pleasing goes beyond genuine kindness or compassion. It often functions as an unhealthy defence mechanism that can negatively impact mental health and overall well-being. Recognising these patterns can be a crucial first step toward addressing and managing people-pleasing behaviours in a healthier way.

People-pleasing refers to the tendency of prioritising others’ emotional needs and opinions over their own, often at the expense of your well-being. This often involves seeking external validation and approval from others as this might feel good and validating. Subsequently, it may also result in feeling a sense of self-worth and acceptance. People-pleasers may go to great lengths to meet others’ expectations, avoid conflict, and gain approval, even if it means neglecting their feelings, desires, and boundaries to meet the demands of others. It may present in perfectionism and anxiety. Psychologists use this term to highlight the pattern where individuals rely heavily on others for emotional validation and fulfilment, outsourcing their emotional needs to external sources.

Signs that you might be engaging in people-pleasing behaviours:

• You struggle to say no or set healthy boundaries in relationships.
• You constantly seek approval or try to please others.
• You worry excessively about other people’s needs.
• You feel disconnected from your authentic self.
• You rely on others to define how you feel in various situations.
• You find it challenging to identify and understand your own feelings.
• You frequently feel like you’re walking on eggshells, fearing others’ reactions.
• You attempt to control others’ decisions to feel emotionally safe.
• You experience guilt when upset with others and tend to blame yourself (a form of “self-gaslighting”).
• In conflicts, your first instinct is to appease the angry person.
• You neglect your own needs, preferences, thoughts, and feelings to make others happy.
• You adjust your needs based on others’ moods, not just with parents or caregivers, but with everyone.

What is the root cause of people-pleasing?

Being a people-pleaser may be more than a personality trait, rather it could be a response to serious trauma. People-pleasing can stem from various underlying factors such as low self-esteem, fear of rejection, or a need for approval. Specifically, people-pleasing, perfectionism, and the fawn response often stem from early childhood experiences and attachment patterns. During a child’s formative years, the need for approval and acceptance from caregivers is fundamental for emotional security. Children may learn to please others, conform to expectations, or adopt perfectionist tendencies as adaptive strategies to gain love, attention, and validation.

Is people-pleasing a coping mechanism?

The fawn response, specifically, is considered a survival mechanism that develops in response to environments where expressing authentic emotions or asserting personal boundaries is met with punishment, rejection, or neglect. Children in such environments may learn to prioritise others’ needs and emotions over their own to maintain a sense of safety and belonging. A “fawn” response is formed by attempts to avoid conflict and trauma by appeasing others. For example, a child might feel the need to be a “good kid” in order to avoid mistreatment from an adult figure or family member. Alternatively, it may stem from a child learning to suppress their own feelings and needs to appease their parent and be a “good kid”.

Perfectionism can also develop as a coping mechanism. Children who receive conditional love or praise based on their achievements may internalise the belief that their worth is contingent upon their performance. This belief can lead to the constant pursuit of flawlessness and the fear of failure. These patterns of behaviour often persist into adulthood, shaping individuals’ interpersonal relationships and self-perception. These tendencies are linked to low self-esteem, anxiety, and difficulty in forming authentic connections with others.

What is the impact of maintaining people-pleasing?

Over time, people-pleasing emotional outsourcing can lead to feelings of resentment, exhaustion, and a diminished sense of self-worth, making it important for individuals to recognise and address these patterns in therapy or counselling. People-pleasing behaviours can take a toll on your mental health and well-being.

How can I overcome my people-pleasing behaviour?

In individual therapy sessions, psychologists can provide personalised, one-on-one support to explore the roots of these behaviours in depth. Through a therapeutic relationship, individuals can gain deeper insights into their past experiences, attachment patterns, emotional triggers, trauma responses or traumatic experiences, complex PTSD, month other experiences. Psychologists utilise various evidence-based techniques to help clients improve mental health, and identify overly-appraising behaviours and cycles of codependency, to lead you to get to know your authentic self.

Speaking to a warm and compassionate psychologist can also help manage childhood trauma, and dissociation, challenge distorted beliefs, process unresolved emotions, and develop healthier coping mechanisms. This personalised approach allows for a comprehensive exploration of the psychological factors contributing to people-pleasing behaviour to help support your mental health.

How a psychologist can help me stop people-pleasing?

Addressing these patterns in therapy with a psychologist involves exploring the root causes, challenging distorted beliefs about self-worth, and developing self-compassion and assertiveness skills. By understanding the psychological origins of these behaviours, individuals can work towards breaking the cycle of people-pleasing, perfectionism, and the fawn response, fostering healthier relationships and self-acceptance.

Evidence-based treatment approaches utilised to target people-pleasing behaviours:

Our warm and compassionate psychologists at our Melbourne psychology practice work with you to establish an individualized treatment plan that utilises evidence-based strategies to fit your unique needs. These strategies may include Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and understanding the intricacies of the human mind and body. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is another approach that can be utilised by psychologists to help individuals process complex trauma.

Through trauma-informed therapy, you may experience a reduction in stress and improvements in both your nervous system and overall health conditions. This approach acknowledges the impact of trauma on your mental and physical well-being, facilitating a more comprehensive healing process. Psychologists are trained to guide individuals in challenging deeply ingrained patterns, providing valuable support and insights throughout the process.

How can Positive Wellbeing Psychology help?

Reach out to Positive Wellbeing Psychology to join our upcoming group on understanding emotion dysregulation and how the nervous system can impact how we feel and react to daily life stresses, both consciously and subconsciously.

Through supportive therapy, psychologists create a safe and empathetic space for individuals to express their emotions. By fostering a therapeutic alliance, psychologists can validate (think re-parenting) the individual’s feelings, provide validation, and offer guidance in navigating the impact of emotion dysregulation and how to help your nervous systems.

Interested in Group Therapy?

In our small groups, our psychologists work with individuals to integrate these psychological approaches, to help you gradually overcome people-pleasing tendencies, perfectionism, and the fawn response, to help foster self-empowerment, self-acceptance, and healthier relationships with others. These few areas are covered in our group work but also available in our individual therapy consultations with all of our psychologists:

Mindfulness and Self-Compassion: Mindfulness practices encourage individuals to be present in the moment without judgment. By cultivating mindfulness, individuals can observe their thoughts and emotions objectively, gaining better control over impulsive people-pleasing behaviours. Additionally, fostering self-compassion — being kind and understanding to oneself — counteracts the harsh self-criticism often associated with perfectionism, promoting a more balanced and positive self-view.

Neuroplasticity and Setting Boundaries: Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to reorganise itself, forming new neural connections throughout life. In the context of people-pleasing and the fawn response, individuals can develop neuroplasticity by consciously practising assertiveness, learning to say no, and setting healthy boundaries. Over time, these behaviours can reshape neural pathways, empowering individuals to prioritize their own needs and well-being.

Understanding the Nervous System and Somatic Symptoms: The nervous system plays a crucial role in regulating stress responses, including the fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses. Understanding how the nervous system functions can help individuals recognize somatic symptoms (physical sensations related to emotions) associated with these responses. By developing awareness of these symptoms, individuals can gain insight into their emotional states and employ coping techniques to manage stress and anxiety effectively.

Cognitive Restructuring: Cognitive restructuring involves challenging and reframing internalized beliefs and assumptions that contribute to people-pleasing and perfectionism. Through cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) techniques, individuals can identify negative thought patterns, question their validity, and replace them with more realistic and positive beliefs. This process helps individuals develop a healthier self-image and reduce the need for external validation.