Alice Miller: why it can be hard to stop pleasing others

A message arrives in the evening asking for help. The working day is over, tomorrow already has plans, and the first thought is clear enough: this time it will not work. Yet the reply says “of course” before its writer has decided what they want. Later comes irritation with the request, with the sender and, to some extent, with themselves. The other person still has no idea how much relief a refusal would have brought.

This everyday scene offers a way into a question that concerned Alice Miller: what happens to someone’s feelings when being accepted depends on attending to other people’s expectations first? In The Drama of the Gifted Child, she explored children’s adaptation to adults’ needs and its consequences. Here we approach that theme as an author’s psychological interpretation.

If low mood or loss of interest persists for most of the day, almost every day, for two weeks or longer, seek professional help. Depression involves interacting factors and cannot be explained by people-pleasing alone. If you are in immediate danger of harming yourself, contact your local emergency service.

Children depend on adults and gradually learn what follows their actions. Can they disagree when a parent is tired? What happens if they do not want a hug? Will someone comfort them when they cry, or ask them to stop spoiling the mood? In some families, anticipating the expected response becomes easier than explaining a feeling and meeting irritation.

This need not involve a conscious decision. A child may notice someone else’s exhaustion, become unusually self-sufficient and save their questions for later. Adults praise this understanding, while the child checks less often whether there is room for their own requests. Miller directs attention to this kind of adaptation. Her perspective can help someone examine their experience, but one behaviour cannot reveal an entire family history.

Adults also care, negotiate and consider other people’s circumstances. The difficulty arises when agreement becomes almost the only way to remain close. Even a small disagreement may then feel as though the relationship itself is at stake.

With the evening message, it helps to look at the order of events. The request did not create an obligation by itself. The obligation followed an answer given without checking time or willingness. Anger might point to overload, an unfair division of work or another occasion when someone failed to include their own needs. Its meaning becomes clearer when the circumstances are visible.

Sometimes the irritation lands on a loved one: surely they should have known how difficult it was to agree. But they received an unmistakable yes. If they did not pressure or threaten, they may genuinely not know what that answer cost. The conversation has to include something previously left unsaid: “I agreed too quickly. I cannot manage it today, but I could look at it on Saturday.”

Threats, humiliation or financial control limit the possibilities for such a conversation. Safety, access to support and the actual consequences of refusal need to be considered. A general instruction to become more assertive does not change those circumstances.

The book may provide language for an experience that has been hard to describe: exhaustion from always keeping everything together, for example, or the sense that gratitude is acceptable while resentment is forbidden. A useful approach is to notice a specific connection with your life while retaining the freedom to disagree with the author’s interpretation.

The image of a successful person who constantly needs confirmation of their worth remains a subject for reflection. It cannot establish depression or a manic state. Those terms describe clinical phenomena with particular features; using them as labels for two kinds of personality would be misleading.

Miller invites readers to examine early relationships. It is also worth looking at present circumstances: work, sleep, available support, losses and illness. The past may explain a great deal, while current conditions often need practical changes of their own.

Start with a small situation in which a delayed answer is possible. “I will check my schedule and reply this evening” makes room to notice your response. During that pause, consider whether you want to help, how much effort the request involves and what you would have to postpone.

Guilt sometimes follows an answer. You can examine it more closely: have you broken an actual promise, left a dependent person without care, or encountered an unfamiliar freedom to disagree? The distinction affects what comes next. Sometimes an arrangement needs repairing; sometimes someone else’s disappointment needs to be tolerated without a growing list of excuses.

A few episodes can be recorded in a journal: the request, your first answer, the feeling and the outcome. The purpose is to notice repetition. If every refusal leads to punishment or fear, that is also a significant part of the picture to discuss with a professional.

Friends, a therapy group or a psychologist may help someone hear their own thoughts in conversation. Belonging to a group does not in itself mean dependency. Consider whether questions are welcome, refusals are respected, and members remain free to leave or discuss other sources of support.

Change can look quite ordinary: someone checks their schedule before answering a request and spends less time silently arguing afterwards. They can still care about other people. The agreement simply includes another participant now, someone whose time and energy had somehow been left out.

The Drama of the Gifted Child on Alice Miller’s website and the Basic Books edition introduce the book and the author’s approach. WHO’s depression factsheet describes symptoms and interacting causes. The opening scene is an illustration, not a case from Miller’s book.