Most People Pleasers Were Parent Pleasers First, Therapist Claims

What was said

"Most people pleasers were parent pleasers first. That's often the learned behavior. And then the not knowing ourselves, having low confidence, low self-esteem, is the result of doing that for such a long period of time."

Josephson identified the origin of adult people-pleasing behavior in childhood dynamics with unpredictable or critical caregivers. She explained that children learn their safety depends on managing parental moods, creating hypervigilance that becomes embedded in their nervous system. This contradicts the common assumption that low self-esteem causes people-pleasing, reversing the causality.