The Disease to Please (2002) is a book for too nice guys and girls who say “Yes” when they really want to say “No.” Harriet Braiker, the author, teaches people with the disease to please how to become more assertive, stand up for themselves, and respectfully say no when they want to say no.

Overview

• People pleasers harm themselves by becoming martyrs, by putting other people’s needs first, and, way too often, by putting their own needs last
• There are many causes of people-pleasing behavior, from fear of confrontation, to building one’s own identity and self-esteem around “being nice” to false beliefs about what it means to be nice and selfish. However, the end result is the same: all people pleasers are similar in their patterns of behavior
• You can cure your people pleasing dysfunction, and you can start by understanding exactly that: that it’s a dysfunctional pattern of behavior

Notes

About the Author:
Harriet Braiker was a social and clinical psychologist and best-selling author.
She also wrote “Who’s Pulling Your Strings“, a great book on manipulation and manipulation dynamics.

What’s The Disease to Please

The Disease to Please is a compulsive—even addictive—behavior pattern. As a people-pleaser, you feel controlled by your need to please others and addicted to their approval.

However, it goes beyond simply not being able to say no:

your need to please is not limited to just saying “yes” to the actual requests, invitations, or demands initiated by others. As a people-pleaser, your emotional tuning dials are jammed on the frequency of what you believe other people want or expect of you.

That means that whatever you think others may want or need, you feel compelled to provide -or, at least, not to deny it-.
And, in TPM parlance, it also makes you an easy picking -or victim- for “covert questions“, covert requests, and guilt-tripping: people don’t even need to ask you anything, just imply or hint at something they want, and you feel compelled to provide it.

Your Self-Esteem Is All Built Around Pleasing

Your sense of identity, your self-esteem, and even your worthiness to be loved derive from doing things for others. In fact, it often seems like you are what you do.

For more on changing your identity, see:

• The antifragile ego

People Please Out of Mindsets, Habits, or Feelings

The author says that we can recognize 3 general causes for people-pleasing behavior:

1. Habits, or habitual behaviors driven by an excessive, even addictive, need for everyone’s approval
2. Mindsets, believing that being nice will protect you from rejection and other hurtful treatment from others.
   It includes a “fixed thought that you must strive for everyone to like you. You measure your self-esteem and define your identity by how much you do for others and how higher up you put their needs above yours”.
3. Feelings, when you have anxiety even at the thought of saying “no”, or letting someone down, or having to face anger and a possible confrontation.
   At this level, the syndrome operates primarily as an avoidance tactic to protect you from your fears of anger, conflict, and confrontation

The author says that different people tend to skew more heavily towards one of the three, albeit most people pleasers are a mix of all of them.
That’s not bad news though, because if you can only change one, the others will follow suit.
Says Braiker:

You can stop the progression of the Disease to Please and you can change now. To do so, you need only begin with a small change in any one area—your behavior, thoughts, or feelings. As one change at a time inevitably builds on the next,

The 6 False Beliefs of People Pleasers

1. Being nice is important
2. Life is fair, and nice people nice avoid painful experiences (such as rejection, isolation, abandonment, disapproval, and anger)
3. If you’re hurt or rejected, you weren’t nice enough
4. If I don’t put others first, I’m being selfish and not nice
5. Whatever you do doesn’t “stick” or “add up”, every new day you must prove your niceness from scratch
6. What people think of me is important

‘Shoulds’ and Making Others Your Judges

Couple with a few ‘shoulds’ that other people should be nice back because ‘we’re nice to them’
Braiker quotes Albert Ellis on the gratuitous harm of the various “shoulds” and “must” we place on ourselves.

Also see:

• How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable

Says the author:

When you hear the commanding should in your thoughts or self-talk, you are hearing the voice of your judging conscience.
(…)
That voice is the amalgamation of your parents, teachers, older siblings, coaches, or other authority figures that, at various points in your life, laid down rules that have stayed with you throughout your life.

In this TPM’s framework, you elect others to be your judge, and you become your own worst judge.
You fear their judgment, fear your own judgment, and become trapped in your impossible to meet standards of what it means to be “nice”.

Also see more on judge power dynamics:

The Costs of People-Pleasing

1. Other people may manipulate and exploit you and your willingness to please them
2. You may be blind to power dynamics and manipulation: “your niceness may even blind you to the fact that others are exploiting you“
3. You avoid giving feedback and valid criticism out of fear that people may dislike you, get angry, or push you into a “difficult conversation“
4. You build up anger and resentment over time, and since you’re not able to express yourself in a healthy and assertive fashion, you may resort to passive aggressiveness
5. Your relationships suffer because you can’t have an authentic relationship unless you’re able to share your true feelings and thoughts
6. Your needs will go unmet: you also have needs, just like everyone else. And if you never voice them, you will never get what you want, what you need, and what you deserve
7. You turn passive-aggressive: your anger seeks revenge, but the submissiveness permits you to deny your aggressive side to both your partner and yourself and to maintain your self-concept as nice. The problem is that passive-aggressive actions actually incite your partner to greater hostility
8. You failt at work, because you’re unable to delegate and end up doing it all yourself. People who do all the small stuff do not advance in their career
9. You fail at life: you never even come close to expressing your potential
10. You’ll get abused and manipulated (keep on reading)

Also too nice people attract takers in their life.
Just look at this female people pleaser comment:

“After everything I’ve done for everyone else,” one patient of mine says bitterly, “nobody is there for me. I’ve been so nice to everyone, and people just take me for granted.”

Case Study: A People Pleaser’s Wake-Up Call

Sarah was a people pleaser who broke her back to do everything for her family, and more.
Now look what happened when it was Sarah who needed help:

When she returned from the hospital, Sarah was shocked and profoundly hurt by her family’s reaction. Instead of being kind and happy to reciprocate the years of Sarah’s nurturance, they displayed irritation and resentment for the inconvenience

So then she finally opened her eyes and started changing:

“I realized that I was raising a bunch of lousy human beings. So I decided there and then that things were going to change. And they have, but very slowly (…) “The best part is that I really believe my family respects me and loves me more for making them into better people,” she concluded.

It’s possible to give and be valued. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the best things you can do, but it’s up to you to make sure people value your contributions.
So to avoid being taken advantage of while still giving you must make sure that people value and respect your contribution.

Here at TPM we call it “fair value marketing”.
Also learn more about giving and taking in the social exchange:

Case Study: The Approval Seeker (Judge Power Dynamics)

Another great case study to understand what happens when you remain addicted to other people’s approval:

“Every man I’ve dated since has figured out how much I need approval. My son knows it too. I can see that I just hand over the strings to the other person in a relationship, and I behave like a good little puppet (…) I’m literally still trying to get my father’s approval. He’s 83 years old and as critical and withholding as ever. I keep hoping he’ll let me know that he really loves me before he dies.

Again, this is all about emotional power dynamics, and what we refer to here as “judge roles” who have power over you via emotional rewards and punishments.

The solution?
To only see yourself as the main dispenser of approval:

The most important, effective, and lasting source of approval is the acceptance you give to yourself. Develop a clear sense of your own judgments and values and govern yourself accordingly.

This is why at TPM we start with mental empowerment:

• Foundations of self-development

Over-Giving Doesn’t Work

Over-giving not only sets you up for being taken advantage of, but also doesn’t provide you with any social benefits.
Giving too much also puts the good people in a tough spot (ie.: those who don’t want to take advantage of you):

In a way, giving too much is a form of social exchange manipulation.
You’re trying to buy love and liking, but you’re doing it out of selfishness, and that makes you come across as fake and manipulative.

Solution: Positive Self-Interest

Start with a re-definition:

As a people pleaser you’re not being “giving” or selfless, you’re being self-destructive.

Internalize: It’s OK Not To Be Nice

You will take a huge step forward when you can internalize that “it’s okay not to be nice”.

Here at the TPM we actually generally like “being kind”.
But we also say that you should NOT be nice with assholes and life’s takers. Because that makes you a sucker.

Self-esteem and self-acceptance

Some people pleasers have low self-esteem and feel bad about themselves.

You must address the issue at its roots: before love, you need self-love.

New Definition and Goal: Positve Self-Interest

There is a third alternative that will best serve everyone, and that is for you to operate in a state of enlightened self-interest. What this means is that you will take good care of yourself, even putting your needs first at times, while simultaneously considering the needs and welfare of others.

Also see:

• Empowered individualism

Become An Empowered Giver

the more desirable alternative to being a people-pleaser is to be a person who makes a very intentional choice to care— a choice of when, how, and to whom you give your finite time and resources.

Techniques For Stopping People-Pleasing

The last part of the book is all about techniques and scripts to take the first steps toward liberation.

They include:

• Gaining time with the initial request to think about whether you want to do it or not
• Communicating your preference (assertive communication)
• Remaining steadfast against people’s insistence, guilt-tripping, and cajoling

If you’ve gone through PU, you know all those techniques -plus more- and you’ve seen the examples.
So you already have the tools and it’s more about putting them into practice.

So, in that sense, although Power University is more advanced, PU may also help with people-pleasing behavior:

MORE WISDOM

“Too nice behavior” galvanizes the attacker(s)

The author says that being nice when in a conflict situation is equivalent to “unilateral psychological disarmament”.

She’s right.
And it gets even worse: nice in the face of abuse can increase the abuse:

In effect, niceness gives the other person permission—and even encouragement—to mistreat you.
(…)
Paradoxically, if you are the target of verbal and emotional abuse, your niceness not only will fail to protect you, it will strengthen the person who is hurting you or treating you unkindly.

The more you like someone, the more it clouds your judgment

People-pleasers often err on the side of attributing more noble motives and intentions to people with whom they are involved in a romantic relationship than is actually the case.

And something we repeat often here:

To adequately protect yourself, you need to see people as they are and not how they appear through trick rose-colored lenses that magnify their assets and minimize or block out their flaws

Anger is a power move

Says Harriet Braiker:

Anger, by definition, is an accusation made in response to a perceived error, mistake, or misbehavior. In order for anger to be activated, someone must be blamed for the perceived misdeed.

Basically, she’s saying that when someone gets angry at us, the sub-communication is “you’re to blame because you’re guilty”.

Accepting that anger without pushing back on the message it conveys is the equivalent of admitting guilt:

And, in true people-pleasing form, you give the accuser permission to blame you—exactly what he or she needs.

She talks about “people pleaser”, but the same is true for anyone else.

Once you give them permission to blame you, it means you take 100% of the blame. You’re the guilty, wrong, or “defective” one, and they’re the 100% right, correct, or “good” ones:

Assuming blame is not the same thing as accepting your share of responsibility for a problem
The latter presumes that if a problem occurs between two people, the responsibility will be attributed jointly and fairly. It may not be equally shared, but both parties will acknowledge some degree of responsibility for the problem between them.
Blame, on the other hand, is one-sided. The accuser disavows any responsibility and seeks instead to hold you not just responsible, but answerable and punishable for your actions that are clearly labeled as wrongdoing.

Great wisdom, and I partially agree.

However, I think it’s OK to let someone yell and “be angry” as long as you push back on either the sub-communication of guilt, or the content of the message.

For example, if they yell “look what the fuck you did”, it’s OK to calmly reply “it’s not what I did, it’s what happened, and we both are part of it”.

Such as, the key against angry accusation is to push back on at least one of the several layers of the blame-attack:

1. Address the tone first (the anger itself), what we advise men in relationships
2. Push back against the content: whatever it is they are saying
3. Push back against the sub-communication: such as that the blame is not all on you

“Total Honesty” Is A Power Move And A Form of Aggression

There is a particular form of emotional mistreatment practiced by people who hide their anger and aggressive motives in the guise of “total honesty.” The claim, of course, is that total honesty is always “the best policy.”
(…)
Arguably, being totally honest without any tact, and at the expense of another’s feelings, might well be construed as more a flaw of character than an asset.
(…)
The speaker then compounds the pain by rhetorically asking, “What’s wrong with you? I’m just being completely honest,” implying that the response should have been appreciation or even gratitude.

Also learn more about covert power moves:

Don’t Laugh With Those Who Tease You: It’s Disempowering

When you laugh along with those who tease you, you not only devalue your own self-esteem you also reward the teasers for their hurtfulness or cruelty as well.

To Have Non-Destructive Conflict, Use Overarching Collaborative Frames

As usual, Harrier Braiker may not have put labels on certain techniques and approaches, but she’s a very smart observer of social strategies that work:

Couples that handle their arguments constructively affirm their basic relationship either explicitly or implicitly (i.e., by virtue of leaving basic values unquestioned). As a result, conflicts are contained within safe boundaries, and partners can feel secure in expressing dissatisfaction or even transitory anger.

We call this concept “collaborative framing” here on TPM.

Constructive VC Destructive Conflict: The Difference

After a lengthy and good analysis of conflict resolution, Braiker sums it as follows (redacted for brevity):

Constructive conflicts are safe and productive.
Produce new agreements based on deeper mutual understanding, and reach an endpoint in the form of resolution. The parties experience empowerment, pride, and renewed confidence in their ability to weather problems and develop effective solutions that eliminate or reduce future conflcits. It feels like the relationship grows.
In contrast, destructive conflicts are repetitive, unsafe, hurtful, and counterproductive. They are left unfinished and unresolved, producing hurt feelings, resentments, and stewing anger. The parties, lacking effective solutions or agreements, will argue over the same or very similar issues in the very near future. They feel stuck in recurrent patterns of provocation, accusation, and blame. They feel alienated and the relationship suffers and shrinks.

QUOTES

What a genius opener, I want to use this for PU:

The deal I propose is simply this: you provide the motivation, I will give you the tools and skills you need to reclaim control over your life.

On the reality of people pleasing:

While people-pleasers may think they excel at making others happy, their real talent lies in making themselves feel miserable and inadequate.

On needing VS loving:

In unhealthy relationships the feeling is, “I love you because I need you.” In “healthy love” relationships the feeling is, “I need you because I love you.” These are not mere subtleties of language, but critically different emotional postures

On people pleaser’s “safe distance” also being an emotional moat preventing healthy connections:

However, if you stay far enough away from people so they can’t reach out and strike you, you are also too far for them to be able to reach out and embrace you.

TPM Corrections

• The difference between mindsets, habits and feelings lacked clarity

Especially the “habits” one.

• Perpetrates the myth that “conflict-avoidant couples have poor relationships”

… And that good relationships have conflicts.

But this may actually be a myth, as Gottman’s research suggests that couples that have zero conflict actually stick together.
Now “sticking together” may not be equivalent to “health”, but it’s still an important indicator.

• Jumps to conclusions

Talking about a husband “victim” of a people pleaser, the author says:

Ron acted out his anger by withholding sexual interest and attention toward his wife and by cheating behind her back.

That may be possible, but we don’t know for sure.
It’s entirely possible Ron’s main “motivation” is that he wanted to sleep around and would have cheated anyway.

• Clueless and poor advice to women when it comes to submissiveness/femininity/dating

The author has some feminist-leaning “advice” to women:

Today many of these women, and even a significant number of younger women too, fear that the very traits that account for their success in the workplace—assertiveness, mental toughness, aggressiveness, competitiveness —become liabilities in their romantic relationships with men.

Those DO become liabilities in their dating.
Also see feminine women VS strong women.

• Too many and too long offshoots

Harrier Braiker is an outstanding psychologist and observer of human nature and social dynamics, so her off-topics are often opportunities to learn.
Still, if a book is about “Disease to Please”, I think that it avoids lengthy off-topics about, say, conflict management.

• Presents the “sandwich technique” as a highly effective technique

… Something I disagree with.
Everyone’s seen it, and whenever they hear a positive, they already know that a negative is coming, and it all feels contrived and manipulative. Exactly what you want to avoid.
To be precise, there are ways of doing it that are effective, so it’s more about the delivery than the technique itself. Still, the technique is now trite.

PROS

• Perfect combination of theory and practice

In The Disease to Please you’ll find both: the theory you need to understand the issue, plus (plenty of) tools you need to start fixing it.

• Best overview of emotional power dynamics and judge role

Many people pleasers seek emotional rewards from others.
They are emotional addicts, and they elect everyone else as their own judges.

We first came up with emotional power dynamics and the “judge role” early on TPM’s history and, back then, we hadn’t yet read much on the topic.
Reading Harriet Braiker was like reading about what we originally wrote on the topic of emotional power dynamics.
Braiker predates -and validates- that all-important concept of social and power dynamcis better than anyone else we’re read so far.

• Deep overview and analysis of people-pleasing

Including how it affects relationships and how it invites controlling men and abusive partners.
If we wanted to nitpick, the author does not dwell on how people pleasing damages men in dating, but if you’re reading on this website, you know that.

REVIEW

The Disease to Please is an exceptionally valuable book on the people-pleasing syndrome, offering both psychological depth and practical solutions.

It’s perfect for all the nice guys and nice girls, for people stuck in passive and passive-aggressive communication, for those who are too submissive, for those who are fearful of others and for everyone who feels pressured into saying “yes” when they didn’t want to say “yes”.
Such as: for a lot of people who have room to become higher power and more assertive.

Harriet Braiker also happens to be one of this website’s lesser-known favorite authors.
All of her work has been top-notch, and we learned a lot from it.

Get it on Amazon or check the best books collection.

🦅 TPM’s take for ambitious men: We highly recommend The Disease to Please, but we must add that it’s only a first step for ambitious men.
To advance into the top-10% and gain serious respect, status, and attraction, you’ll need more advanced resources that include dominant behavior, masculine body language, and more advanced mindsets. Once you’re ready for that, you can check out Power University.

The Disease to Please Summary: How to Cure People-Pleasing

The Disease to Please (2002) is a book for too nice guys and girls who say "Yes" when they really want to say "No." Harriet Braiker, the author, teaches people with the disease to please how to become more assertive, stand up for themselves, and respectfully say no when they want to say no.

URL: https://thepowermoves.com/the-disease-to-please-summary-review/

Author: Lucio Buffalmano

Editor's Rating:
4.9