It’s common to hear someone describe themselves as a “people-pleaser.” Perhaps you even identify with that label. However, for some people, this is about more than just trying to make sure the people around them are happy. For some, people-pleasing is a trauma response like fawning, which isn’t just an attempt to accommodate others but an attempt to hold on to relationships even at great personal cost. People-pleasing, then, can be a survival strategy formed in environments where someone’s emotional safety is uncertain.
At Columbia Associates, our team of experienced therapists and psychiatric providers supports clients across the Washington D.C. metro area in understanding the roots of behaviors like people-pleasing and can help you learn to recognize these patterns and move through life in new, healthy ways. If you or someone you care about is struggling, our PTSD treatment services are designed to help.
What is people-pleasing?
People-pleasing is more than just being agreeable. On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with wanting your loved ones to be happy or have a pleasant experience. However, it can become problematic if putting others’ needs ahead of your own is a constant pattern. This type of people-pleasing is often linked to trauma, and can look like:
- Always saying “yes” to requests that cause you to set aside your own feelings or needs
- Consistently suppressing your own feelings to “keep the peace”
- Being overly agreeable as a coping mechanism
While these behaviors may seem harmless and even loving, they are most often learned responses. It’s likely your early childhood experiences made you believe it wasn’t safe to be emotionally vulnerable or make a decision that felt best for you.
This can be the result when individuals grow up in unpredictable or high-stress environments. Over time, however, coping strategies like agreeability can become an automatic response, both professionally and personally, creating long-term emotional strain.
More on people-pleasing as a trauma response
The idea that people-pleasing is a trauma response may surprise some, but it’s part of what mental health professionals call the “fawn response.” In addition to the well-known fight, flight, and freeze reactions, fawning is another way the body and brain respond to conflict, especially interpersonal ones. Instead of confronting or avoiding a relational problem, the fawn response means appeasing someone. This helps the individual who feels emotionally unsafe minimize conflict and the potential risk of losing that relationship.
This type of trauma response is especially common in individuals who have experienced:
- Emotional neglect
- Abuse
- Inconsistent caregiving
When people have these experiences as a child, the long-term impact can be significant in their adult relationships. People-pleasing behaviors can become so deeply ingrained that they become automatic in the face of potential conflict. Individuals will feel the need to stay connected and avoid punishment (or another person’s negative reaction), even at the expense of their own boundaries. This subconscious behavior is called fawning.
Common signs of the fawn response include:
- Difficulty setting boundaries, even when overwhelmed
- Chronic guilt or anxiety about saying “no”
- A tendency to over-apologize
- Feeling responsible for others’ emotions
- Losing your sense of identity in relationships
If left unchecked, these behaviors can take a significant toll on your emotional well-being and your relationships. The good news is that therapy can be extremely helpful for people struggling with people-pleasing. Revolutionizing how they feel about themselves and their relationships.
The impact of unaddressed trauma responses
Fawning leads to emotional exhaustion, resentment, and disconnection from your own needs. Individuals with a pattern of people-pleasing and fawning as a trauma response can struggle with depression, anxiety, or persistent feelings of emptiness—often without realizing how these things are connected to unresolved trauma.
Left unaddressed, fawning will likely stand in the way of truly healthy relationships, your own personal growth, and your quality of life. But becoming aware of this issue is a wonderful starting point, as it will lead to the empowerment and tools you need to change your life. It’s entirely possible to interrupt these cycles and develop healthier ways of relating to yourself and those around you.
Find support for your healing today at Columbia Associates
At Columbia Associates, our therapists offer trauma-informed care tailored to each client’s history, goals, and support needs. Therapeutic approaches such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), as well as others, can be incredibly helpful to those looking to change how they interact with others to meet their own needs.
We provide services both in-person and via telehealth across Maryland, Virginia, and the Washington D.C. metro area. Call us 703.682.8208 today for more information about how we can help you let go of people-pleasing and embrace emotional freedom.
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