Trace where it was necessary
Nobody becomes this attentive to other people for no reason. Usually it was adaptive somewhere, and naming where takes the shame out of it.
You are allowed to disappoint someone.
Therapy for women who are unusually good at anticipating what everyone else needs and cannot remember the last time they said what they wanted. Virtual throughout New York and Vermont, in person in Patchogue.
Book a free consult
Fifteen minutes, free, and nothing to prepare.
Prefer to call or text? 631-371-4888
- Focus
- Perfectionism, people pleasing, boundaries and the fear of being too much.
- Methods
- Internal Family Systems, CBT and relational work.
- Who
- Gen Z and Millennial women.
- Sessions
- Virtual across New York and Vermont, in person in Patchogue.
Insurance & payment
Select New York plans accepted: Aetna, Northwell Direct, UnitedHealthcare and Optum. Vermont clients and anyone out of network are private pay, and a sliding scale is available.
The cost of being easy to be around
Everyone calls it being thoughtful. It is closer to scanning.
People pleasing is usually described as kindness. From the inside it is closer to constant surveillance: reading the room, adjusting, and checking whether you are still fine with everybody in it.
- Knowing the mood of a room before you have taken your coat off.
- Apologizing for things that are not yours.
- Agreeing to something and resenting it on the way home.
- Rehearsing how to say no, then not saying it.
- Being the reliable one and quietly wondering who does that for you.
- Feeling responsible for how other people feel about your decisions.
How the work goes
The habit protected you. Then it started charging rent.
Separate kindness from fear
Some of it is genuine generosity you would keep. Some of it is fear of what happens if you stop. Telling them apart is most of the work.
Tolerate the discomfort of no
Boundaries do not feel good at first. They feel like guilt. Being able to sit through that reaction without undoing the boundary is the skill being built.
Let some relationships change
This part is honest rather than comfortable. When you stop over-functioning, some relationships adjust and some object, and we work through what that brings up.
About the word perfectionism
It is not really about wanting things perfect.
Most perfectionism is not aesthetic. It is protective. The standard is high because falling below it feels dangerous, not because the outcome genuinely needs to be flawless.
This is why advice to lower your standards rarely helps. It treats the standard as the problem, when the problem is what you believe will happen if you miss it.
Common questions
A few honest things before you book.
- Will therapy make me stop caring about doing things well?
- No. The aim is not to make you careless. It is to make the standard something you choose rather than something you are frightened of, so that doing well costs you less.
- I am not sure people pleasing is a real problem. Is it?
- It is when it is expensive. Chronic self-abandonment shows up as resentment, exhaustion, anxiety and a slow loss of any sense of what you actually want. Those are real costs even though nothing dramatic is happening.
- What if setting boundaries damages my relationships?
- Some relationships do change, and that is worth going into with your eyes open. We work on it gradually and in a considered order, rather than you announcing a set of new rules on a Tuesday.
- Does this overlap with anxiety?
- Frequently. People pleasing is often anxiety in a socially rewarded shape, which is exactly why it goes unexamined for so long.
Related
What else I work on, and where.
- Self-esteem and self-worthThe inner critic, approval seeking, and worth that moves with feedback.
- AnxietyOverthinking, anticipation, social anxiety and physical tension.
- Eating disordersRestriction, food guilt, compensating, and rules that keep multiplying.
- Relationship issuesAttachment patterns, over-giving, jealousy and losing yourself in a relationship.
- Life transitionsGraduating, moving, career changes, breakups and identity shifts.
- Trauma and PTSDTrauma responses, hypervigilance, shutdown and the past showing up in the present.
You can bring the version of you that is tired.
Fifteen minutes, free, and there is nothing to perform in it.
Book a free consult
Prefer to call or text? 631-371-4888
Insurance accepted for select New York plans: Aetna, Northwell Direct, UnitedHealthcare and Optum. Private pay and sliding scale available everywhere, including Vermont.