People pleasers put other people’s approval above their own needs, often at the expense of their own wellbeing. According to Cleveland Clinic, a people pleaser goes out of their way to make others happy, and the price shows up as resentment, stress and burnout (Cleveland Clinic). In a YouGov poll of 1,000 US adults carried out in June 2022, 49% said they would describe themselves as people pleasers, with more women (56%) than men (42%) in that group (YouGov).
People pleaser is not a clinical diagnosis. This phrase describes a learnt way of handling conflict and rejection, and the practical steps further down show how to stop people pleasing by training a different response.
Key points
- People pleasing often has roots in childhood, according to Cleveland Clinic.
- Almost half of US adults identified with it in a 2022 YouGov poll.
- Silencing your own needs is associated with more symptoms of depression, according to a meta-analysis of more than 10,000 participants.
- Small boundaries come first.
What is a people pleaser?
A people pleaser organises decisions around what other people will think. They agree before thinking, apologise for things they did not do, hold back their own opinion until they know what the group prefers and feel a tightening whenever they imagine displeasing someone. Psychology Today describes something close when writing about the caregiving side of codependency: these people focus so much on pleasing others that they neglect their own wants and needs, generally have low self-esteem and find it hard to set boundaries and be assertive (Psychology Today). From the outside the behaviour can look like kindness, which helps explain why it goes unnoticed. Someone who is kind by choice can refuse when they need to, while someone who pleases out of fear tends to feel a refusal as a risk. Two thirds of Americans in that same 2022 YouGov poll said they often go to great lengths to avoid conflict (YouGov).
Medical News Today adds a related term. Some people respond with what is called fawning, which the site describes as an extreme form of people pleasing (Medical News Today).
How the pattern forms
An assertiveness leaflet from the NHS mental health trust in Leicestershire explains that we act unassertively because we have learnt through our experiences to behave that way. According to the same leaflet, this can be traced back to early childhood (NHS Leicestershire). Along the same lines, Cleveland Clinic observes that the tendency is common in people whose childhood taught them that being “good” and avoiding conflict mattered most. According to the article, this is particularly true of those who experienced abuse, trauma, neglect or abandonment (Cleveland Clinic). Picture the child who notices affection arriving when they are quiet and useful, and vanishing when they have a need of their own. That child may draw a practical conclusion about how to keep affection close. That conclusion can pass through adolescence unreviewed until it reaches work, marriage and friendships carrying the same old rule.
Few clients walk into my consulting room saying they cannot stop pleasing people. Usually they bring a different complaint: they feel exhausted and do not know why.
Signs the pattern is already costing you
No single sign defines a people pleaser, but the cluster tends to be recognisable. Cleveland Clinic lists feeling taken advantage of, unsatisfying relationships, frustration, resentment and symptoms of stress and burnout, such as trouble sleeping, getting ill more often or changes in weight (Cleveland Clinic). Some effects turn up in unexpected places. Case Western Reserve University researchers studied 101 university students and published the results in 2012 in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. In that study, those who scored high on sociotropy, the name the university’s news release gives to the tendency to please, felt more pressure to eat when they believed it would make another person feel more comfortable (Case Western Reserve University). When several of the signs below show up together, it makes sense to treat the pattern as something that is already taking a toll.
These items bring together signs described by Cleveland Clinic, Psychology Today and the Leicestershire NHS leaflet.
- Saying no feels costly, even for small requests.
- Neglecting your own wants and needs.
- Feeling taken advantage of.
- Frustration and resentment building up in unsatisfying relationships.
- Guilt after refusing, followed by a fresh yes to escape it, for example when turning down extra hours or declining to help a friend move house at the weekend.
- Trouble sleeping.
- Getting ill more often.
How is people pleasing linked to anxiety?
Anxiety appears in the sources as one of the reasons people please. Medical News Today explains that some people try to please others because they feel anxious about fitting in, rejection or causing offence. As an example, the site mentions someone with social anxiety who feels they must do whatever their friends want in order to be liked (Medical News Today). Leicestershire’s NHS leaflet describes the cycle that keeps the pattern going. Saying no to people who make demands of us can be difficult, and if we do, self-critical thoughts lead to guilt. To avoid feeling guilty, we keep saying yes to every request (NHS Leicestershire). Within that cycle, each yes avoids the guilt of the moment and leaves the rule intact for the next request.
Research on self-silencing, the habit of holding back feelings and needs to protect a relationship, measures a closely related behaviour. A 2021 meta-analysis of 42 studies and 10,108 participants found a positive, medium correlation between self-silencing and depression, at r = 0.391 (Pintea and Gatea, 2021). Such an association deserves attention, though it does not prove cause.
A Brazilian paper on social skills describes a similar picture. In it, Bolsoni-Silva and Carrara write about the response in which a person does not express feelings and thoughts, often acts against their own will and fails to stand up for themselves for fear of damaging the relationship later (Psicologia em Revista).
When the accumulated tension arrives at bedtime, the guide on sleep anxiety helps separate the mechanisms. If the main trigger is fear of judgement, the two pieces complement each other.
People pleasing vs codependency
The two patterns look alike because they use the same mechanism, setting your own needs aside to respond to someone else’s, but they differ in who the effort is aimed at: a people pleaser tends to seek approval from many people, from the boss to the neighbour. Codependency, according to Psychology Today, involves focusing so much on the other person that you neglect your own wants and needs, and codependent people are often said to have grown up amid dysfunctional family dynamics (Psychology Today). Describing the caregivers in these relationships, Psychology Today also mentions difficulty setting boundaries and being assertive, the trait that brings the two patterns closest. That is why the two can coexist, and some codependent people please excessively inside the very relationship at the centre of their lives.
The table below combines what the sources in this section and Cleveland Clinic describe with the difference in focus set out above, comparing focus, origin and traits without suggesting treatment.
| People pleasing | Codependency | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Approval from many people and avoiding conflict | Another person’s wants and needs |
| Origin described | Often linked to a childhood in which being “good” and avoiding conflict mattered most (Cleveland Clinic) | Often linked to a family with dysfunctional dynamics (Psychology Today) |
| Shared trait | Difficulty setting boundaries | Difficulty setting boundaries |
When the relationship involves someone with narcissistic traits, the guide on how to deal with a narcissist helps you think about boundaries before the next step.
People pleasing psychology: what the research shows
Three lines of research help explain the pattern. The first is sociotropy, mentioned above. A 2021 systematic review of 27 studies appeared in the Annals of General Psychiatry. That review describes sociotropy, also called the anaclitic dimension, and autonomy as two personality dimensions that confer vulnerability to depression, although the results of the studies are mixed (Marfoli et al., 2021). Next comes self-determination theory, which separates acting by choice from acting under external pressure, for rewards or to avoid punishment. A 2026 meta-analysis of 192 studies and 93,552 participants found a positive association between that external regulation and burnout at work (Hagger and Star, 2026). Neither study measures people pleasing directly: one ties sociotropy to vulnerability to depression, with mixed results, and the other ties external regulation to burnout.
Workplaces are the focus of the third line. A critical discourse analysis appeared in 2025 in Advances in Nursing Science. Its authors argue that historical and structural influences condition nurses to prioritise others at the expense of their own wellbeing, which they link to burnout and diminished autonomy (Kaylor et al., 2025). Being a theoretical piece with no participant sample, it cannot establish cause, and it serves as a reminder that some settings may reward the pattern.
A second YouGov poll surveyed 1,122 US adults in August 2024. Among self-described people pleasers, 48% said it had made their life harder, against 17% who said it had made life easier (YouGov).
How to stop people pleasing (practical steps)
Assertiveness is a skill that can be learnt, according to the counselling service at the University of California, Riverside. Its advice is to practise first in real-life situations with a low degree of threat and anxiety, such as turning down an invitation (UC Riverside). Cleveland Clinic uses the image of a swimming pool with a gradual entry, where nobody has to jump straight into the deep end. It also suggests checking in with how you feel physically and emotionally before answering a request (Cleveland Clinic). The steps below follow that progression, from the easiest to the most demanding. Guilt at the start is common. The Leicestershire NHS leaflet describes exactly that guilt after a no, and the habit of saying yes to avoid it (NHS Leicestershire). Waiting for the guilt to disappear before trying can keep that cycle alive.
- Notice the urge before agreeing, and ask yourself whether the yes comes from wanting to or from fear of displeasing.
- Start with small boundaries. Turn down a low-risk extra request, or an outing you do not want, without a long explanation. A short sentence is enough: “I can’t this time, but thanks for thinking of me.” If refusing puts you at physical, financial or emotional risk, get support before testing boundaries.
- Separate kindness from self-erasure: you can be respectful and still decline.
- Sit with the guilt without obeying it, remembering that this guilt is part of the cycle described above.
- Seek psychotherapy to understand the origin.
What hypnotherapy can and cannot do
Hypnotherapy may have a place as a complement, provided expectations about the evidence stay realistic. NCCIH is the US National Institutes of Health centre for complementary health practices. Its summary is that some studies show promising results for hypnosis in anxiety related to medical or dental procedures, but that the overall evidence is not conclusive (NCCIH). A 2024 review brought together 49 meta-analyses on hypnosis: just over half of the reported effects were medium or large, and only nine of those meta-analyses were rated as having high methodological quality (Rosendahl et al., 2024). None of these sources deals specifically with people pleasing. One way to use hypnotherapy is rehearsing new responses in a state of focused attention, alongside psychotherapy when there is trauma, depression or another condition that needs treatment.
One technique I use often is rehearsing “no” in the body before using it in real life. In guided visualisation, the client practises the refusal with feet grounded, breath low and voice steady, repeating the scene until the posture comes without effort. Afterwards they take home a short audio recording to listen to for 21 days.
Hypnosis is not a reliable way to recover forgotten childhood memories. A review published in the British Journal of Psychiatry concluded that when memories are “recovered” after long periods of amnesia, particularly when extraordinary means were used, there is a high probability that the memories are false (Brandon et al., 1998). For that reason, work on the origin of the pattern starts from what the person already remembers and what they feel today.
If you are in Jersey, the guide to hypnotherapy in Jersey has more on working with a local hypnotherapist.
When should you seek professional help?
Seeking help makes sense when the pattern is already costing sleep, health, relationships or performance, and when attempts to change on your own keep returning to the same place. Cleveland Clinic points out that always putting other people’s wants first, without your own needs being met, can build stress, frustration and resentment. Among the symptoms it mentions are trouble sleeping and getting ill more often (Cleveland Clinic). If that wear comes with persistent low mood, loss of interest or withdrawal, the association between self-silencing and depression found in the 2021 meta-analysis is a good reason not to wait (Pintea and Gatea, 2021). A GP, psychologist or psychiatrist can assess whether anxiety or depression sits behind the pattern and point you to the right treatment. As a practical guide rather than a clinical checklist, these signs are reasons to book that conversation:
- Panic attacks linked to social situations.
- Physical symptoms of stress that do not ease, such as insomnia lasting weeks or getting ill often.
- Avoiding people or places just so you never have to refuse anything.
- Emptiness when nobody needs you.
- Relationships that only continue because you always give way, even when that harms your work, health or family life.
Thoughts of self-harm, suicide risk or a feeling that you cannot keep yourself safe call for urgent help straight away: call 999 in the UK and Jersey or 911 in the US, or go to A&E or an emergency room. Samaritans answer free on 116 123, 24 hours a day, and have a branch in Jersey. In the US, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline takes calls, texts and chats around the clock, and conversations are free and confidential.
Frequently asked questions
Are people pleasers codependent?
Not always. People pleasing is a pattern of seeking approval and avoiding conflict with many people. In codependency, a person focuses so much on someone else that they neglect their own wants and needs. The two can coexist, and difficulty setting boundaries shows up in both.
How do I know if I am a people pleaser?
Clinical sources describe difficulty saying no, a tendency to neglect your own wants and needs, and guilt after refusing. Resentment, burnout, trouble sleeping and a sense of being taken advantage of can come with them.
Does people pleasing cause anxiety or depression?
There is no proof of cause. Research tends to measure closely related behaviours rather than people pleasing itself. Some people please others precisely because they feel anxious about rejection or conflict. Silencing your feelings and needs to protect relationships correlated with depression in a meta-analysis of 42 studies and 10,108 participants. Saying yes to avoid guilt tends to keep the pattern going.
How do I stop people pleasing?
Start with small boundaries in low-risk situations, notice the urge before you agree, and sit with the guilt that follows a no without backing down. Assertiveness is a skill that can be learnt, and psychotherapy can help you understand where the rule of pleasing came from.
Does hypnotherapy help people pleasers?
It may have a place as a complement, for example to rehearse a refusal in a state of focused attention. The evidence on hypnosis in general is still limited. It does not replace psychotherapy when there is trauma or depression, and it should not be used to try to recover forgotten memories.
Conclusion
Learning how to stop people pleasing does not mean becoming someone else. It means seeing a rule you may have learnt early, that being accepted means always being available, and deciding whether it still makes sense today. Small, safe refusals, together with a willingness to sit with guilt without obeying it, are a realistic place to begin training a different response. When the pattern has already taken sleep, health or relationships, professional support can shorten the road.
About the author
Fabio Morus is a behavioural therapist and hypnotherapist in Jersey, Channel Islands, focused on anxiety, phobias, sleep and trauma. He trained in Neuro-Systemic Hypnotherapy, CBT (Beck Institute) and EMDR (EMDR Association UK), and works online in Portuguese and English as well as in person in Jersey.
This article is for information and does not replace professional assessment. In an emergency, call 999 (UK and Jersey) or 911 (US). If you are in acute distress, contact Samaritans on 116 123 (24 hours) or call or text 988 in the US.
