Person struggling with people-pleasing patterns

CBT for People-Pleasing

CBT for people-pleasing — because "yes" shouldn't be your default setting

Specialist therapy for professionals who've built a career on being reliable, agreeable, and helpful — at the expense of themselves.

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It's not being "nice." It's a pattern — and it has a cost.

People-pleasing is a deeply ingrained behavioural pattern in which your own needs are systematically deprioritised in favour of others'. It goes beyond kindness — those are choices. People-pleasing is compulsive. You say yes before you've even considered whether you want to.

At its root, people-pleasing is a safety strategy. At some point — often early in life — you learned that keeping other people happy was the safest way to maintain connection, avoid conflict, or feel valued.

In professional settings, people-pleasing looks like a tremendous asset. You're the reliable one, the team player. You get praised for it. Promoted, even.

But beneath the surface, the maths doesn't work. You're doing everyone else's emotional and practical labour while running a growing deficit on your own wellbeing. And the resentment — the quiet, shameful resentment — is the clearest sign that something needs to change.

The professional people-pleaser's playbook

  • You say yes to everything. Not because you want to — because the thought of saying no triggers guilt and anxiety worse than just doing the thing.
  • You absorb other people's emotions. A colleague is stressed, so you take on their work. You've become everyone's emotional shock absorber.
  • You avoid conflict at all costs. You swallow disagreements. You'd rather work late fixing someone else's mistake than have an uncomfortable conversation.
  • You over-apologise. "Sorry to bother you." "Sorry, this might be a stupid question." You apologise for existing.
  • You can't delegate. Asking someone to do something feels like imposing, and imposing feels intolerable.
  • You feel responsible for everyone's experience. If a meeting goes badly, it's your fault for not managing it better.
  • You're exhausted, resentful, or both. The resentment is the signal your mind sends when the pattern has been running too long.

People-pleasing rarely travels alone

People-pleasing is frequently intertwined with:

  • Anxiety — particularly social anxiety and worry about others' judgement
  • Burnout — because you can't burn out if you set boundaries
  • Low self-worth — the belief that your value depends on what you do for others
  • Perfectionism — if you can't say no, at least you can make everything perfect
  • Depression — chronic self-neglect eventually takes a toll

If you recognise several of these, you're seeing a pattern. And patterns respond beautifully to CBT.

Why CBT works for people-pleasing

Identifying the core beliefs

"My needs are less important than other people's." "If I say no, people will think I'm selfish." "I'm only valuable when I'm useful." These feel like facts. CBT treats them as hypotheses — testable, challengeable, and ultimately changeable.

Behavioural experiments with boundary-setting

We don't just talk about setting boundaries — we plan specific, manageable experiments. What happens when you say "I can't take that on this week"? The actual consequences are almost always less catastrophic than the anticipated ones.

Assertiveness skills

Assertiveness isn't aggression. It's the ability to express your needs clearly and respectfully. CBT teaches it as a practical skill set — not a personality transplant.

Guilt tolerance

Setting boundaries will feel uncomfortable. You will feel guilty. CBT helps you tolerate it, understand it as a signal rather than an instruction, and act according to your values despite it. The guilt diminishes with practice. The freedom doesn't.

The programme

People-Pleasing and Boundaries Programme

Phase 1: Assessment and formulation (sessions 1–2)

Comprehensive assessment of your people-pleasing patterns — when they show up, what drives them, what they cost you.

Phase 2: Understanding the pattern (sessions 3–4)

Mapping the cycle in your specific context. Identifying core beliefs, triggers, and maintaining behaviours.

Phase 3: Cognitive restructuring (sessions 5–7)

Challenging beliefs: "I must keep everyone happy." "Saying no makes me selfish." Replacing with evidence-based perspectives.

Phase 4: Behavioural experiments and assertiveness (sessions 6–9)

Planned, graduated experiments in setting boundaries, saying no, expressing needs, and tolerating guilt.

Phase 5: Consolidation and relapse prevention (sessions 8–10)

Embedding changes. Building a sustainable framework for maintaining boundaries while remaining warm and connected.

8–10 sessions · Weekly 50-minute video sessions · From £960

This is the one thing you're allowed to do for yourself today.

Book a free 15-minute exploratory call. No obligation. No pressure to commit. And if you're already composing an excuse for why now isn't the right time — notice that. That's the pattern.

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