Braiker - The Disease to Please: Curing the People-Pleasing Syndrome

The Disease to Please

Curing the People-Pleasing Syndrome

Harriet B. Braiker, Ph.D

Copyright 2001 by Harriet B. Braiker, Ph.D. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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To the memory of my beloved mother and father To Amanda, my most cherished blessing and To Steven, for giving me his shoe

I hope I have pleased you.

By Harriet B. Braiker, Ph.D.

I had the privilege and pleasure of knowing Dr. Harriet Braiker for more than 25 years. She and I were graduate students together at UCLA and remained close friends until her death. She was one of the smartest and most intuitive people I have ever known. The Disease to Please incorporates Dr. Braikers remarkable ability to combine a firstclass analytic mindone made further so by her training in social and clinical psychologywith her tremendous insight into the relationships that make us human. Harriet understood the possibilities and limitations of human nature, observed with clarity how people interact with one another and what motivates us to continue in patterns of behavior that are damaging rather than rewarding. Importantly, she then devised effective ways to change these behaviors and improve lives.

The Disease to Please is the distillation of Dr. Braikers deep knowledge of psychology and the understandings she gained from her many years as a psychotherapist and as an astute observer of human behavior. In this book, she describes the powerful need many people have for approval and the desire to please others that prevents them from having a full and meaningful life. She first describes the problem, with her usual straightforwardness and lucidity, and then offers specific and highly practical advice about what to do in order to achieve a balance between the demands of others and the needs for ones own time and happiness.

I highly recommend this book. You will learn things that will enrich your life.

Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D.,
author of An Unquiet Mind
and Nothing Was the Same

In July 1999 I appeared as a guest expert on Oprah to discuss The Disease to Please. Oprah told her audience that this diseasethe people-pleasing syndromeis an issue that is very important and personal to her. It is a problem that she has struggled long and hard to overcome. And she believes, as I do, that there are epidemic numbers of womenand men, tooplagued by the self-imposed pressure to please others at the expense of their own health and happiness.

My interest in this topic began many years ago. I have been a practicing clinical psychologist for more than 25 years. Over this time, I have treated hundreds of women and men people-pleasers whose lives become impaired by this compulsion to put others needs first, to never say No, to strive endlessly for everyones approval, and to try to make everyone else happy.

My first book, The Type E Woman: How to Overcome the Stress of Being Everything to Everybody, highlighted people-pleasing as a core cause of womens stress problems. Since then, I have written other books and articles on related topics.

But, my decision to write this book was prompted directly by Oprah Winfrey. Twice, during the taping of the show, Oprah turned to me and said, Harriet, this should be the topic of your next book. I am grateful for Oprahs suggestion and encouragement.

The Disease to Please is not about nice people who occasionally go too far in trying to make others happy. The Disease to Please, in fact, is a debilitating psychological problem with far-reaching, serious consequences.