People Pleasing and Anxiety

People Pleasing and Anxiety: What’s Really Going On Beneath the Surface?

Many of my clients describe themselves as “people pleasers.” It’s a phrase that comes up often in the therapy room – and if you’ve ever Googled “people pleasing and anxiety”, you’re not alone.

On the surface, people pleasing looks like being kind, helpful, and putting others first. But when it tips into self-sacrifice, exhaustion, or anxiety, it becomes something worth exploring more deeply.

People Pleasing and Anxiety

For many clients, people pleasing is closely linked to anxiety. It can look like:

• Struggling to say no in case of upsetting someone.

• Constantly scanning others for signs of approval.

• Feeling guilty or worried if someone seems unhappy.

• Becoming burnt out from taking care of everyone else’s needs.

These patterns often develop as ways of reducing anxiety and avoiding conflict. But they can come at the cost of a client’s own wellbeing, leaving them unsure who they are without constantly pleasing others.

Looking Beneath the Label: Kahler’s Drivers

In psychotherapy, people pleasing isn’t always what it first appears. I often draw on Taibi Kahler’s five drivers – Be Perfect, Be Strong, Try Hard, Please Others, Hurry Up.

For example:

Be Strong - a client may appear to be pleasing others, but in reality they’re avoiding showing vulnerability and coping alone.

Please Others - constantly putting others' needs before their own.

Try Hard - doing more and more, but never feeling it’s enough.

Be Perfect - working hard to meet expectations flawlessly to avoid criticism or rejection.

Hurry Up - feeling compelled to always be on the go, rushing, and productive.

When we explore people pleasing through this lens, we sometimes discover that it’s not about pleasing others at all – but about surviving through one of these deeper drivers.

Attachment, Trauma and the Fawn Response

Attachment theory also helps us understand these patterns:

Anxious attachment often shows up as Please Others or Try Hard – needing closeness and fearing rejection.

Avoidant attachment often aligns with Be Perfect or Be Strong – focusing on others while keeping one’s own needs hidden.

For some clients, especially those with trauma histories, people pleasing is part of the “fawn” response – a survival strategy where appeasing others helped to keep them safe.

This means that people pleasing isn’t a flaw or weakness. It’s an adaptation that once made sense. Therapy helps clients recognise this and gently build new ways of relating that reduce anxiety and allow for more balance.

Therapy and People Pleasing

For therapists, it’s important to stay curious about what “people pleasing” really means for each client. It may be a driver, an attachment pattern, or a trauma response in disguise.

• For clients, understanding the roots of people pleasing can bring relief:

• Realising it’s not who they are, but what they learned to do.

• Seeing how it links with their anxiety.

• Beginning to find healthier ways to connect, without losing themselves in the process.

Summary

People pleasing and anxiety often walk hand in hand. By exploring the drivers, attachment styles, and trauma responses that lie beneath, therapy offers a way forward – one where clients can hold onto their caring qualities while also learning to care for themselves.

If you recognise yourself in these patterns and would like to explore them in therapy, you’re not alone – and support is available.

*Further reading:

• https://www.ptsduk.org/its-so-much-more-than-just-fight-or-flight/

• https://changingminds.org/explanations/motivation/kahler_drivers/kahlers_drivers.htm

• Attachment styles I am informed by the research article "Attachment Styles Among Young Adults: A Test of a Four-Category Model for identifying adult attachment styles" by Bartholomew & Horowitz and matching them to Bowlby and Ainsworth's original childhood attachment styles.