In this short video, I explain why so many men please others by being useful, and how we use our video sessions to turn an automatic yes into a choice.
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Online therapy for people-pleasing in men helps men who agree before they have checked whether they mean it, and who earn their place by being the useful one. The sessions are one to one, by video and in English, each an hour long with 50 minutes of therapy, scheduled around your own time zone.
I help you see what each reflexive yes is paying for, usually approval, safety or the comfort of being needed, and what it is costing you. Then we practise the honest refusal and the yes you actually mean. This page sits under online nice guy syndrome therapy, part of my online psychotherapy for men. If disagreement is the harder part for you, see online therapy for conflict avoidance in men.
You can arrange a free 30-minute call, reserve a session, look over my client policy or get in touch.
Online therapy for people-pleasing in men is for men who are first to volunteer, last to complain and the name everyone thinks of when a job needs doing. You are liked and leaned on, and in private you are running short of time, energy and patience. You want to stay generous without your calendar and your evenings belonging to other people.
This page is about the everyday reflex of pleasing. If one of these lines fits you better, the linked page is a more useful starting point.
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These reviews describe clients’ experiences of working with me. They come from my wider practice and do not all relate to online sessions. Each person’s experience is their own, and a review does not promise a particular outcome.
“Since I began studying men’s work in 2010, I have heard men give their pleasing every name but its own. They call it being a team player, being dependable, being the one who delivers. Those are respectable words, which is why the habit can run unchallenged for decades. Under the automatic yes I hear one question, ‘If I stop being useful, will anyone still want me around?’, and a second, cooler one, ‘Easier to carry it myself than to owe anybody.’ My view is plain. A yes you are unable to withhold is not generosity. It is a membership fee, and it is worth finding out who set the price.”
Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist and EFT couples therapist
I am Mark Colclough, MA. I have practised since 2004 and offer online psychotherapy and couples therapy in English.
My training brings together your emotions, your thoughts and your relationships. My deep passion is the moment when what happens between you finally makes sense, to each of you and to each other. I have lived and worked in nine countries, so I know something of life across languages, cultures and borders.
Read about my background, or explore online psychotherapy and online couples therapy.
I meet regularly with experienced psychotherapists to reflect on my work, question my understanding and develop my skills. Supervision is part of the professional care I bring to individual and couples work, including online sessions.
My focus is thoughtful practice, integrity and responsibility.
You are welcome to ask about the kind of support you need.
Tell me where you are based and your time zone. We can then consider whether online sessions together are suitable.
Ben is 34, from Leeds, and works in finance in Singapore. He organised the team offsite, quietly covers for 2 colleagues and replies to London emails late into his night. Last Saturday he gave up a diving trip he had planned for months to help a friend’s brother move flat. His girlfriend asked why he can refuse her but nobody else. He made a joke, then lay awake with his heart thumping.
I would start with the second the friend asked and Ben heard himself say “sure, no problem”. In a first video session he would probably notice a small, quick fear just before the yes, and how familiar it feels. That fear, not the favour, is where we begin.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have tried to set limits, and somehow the yes is out of your mouth before you can catch it.
There is no ideal moment to start. If your week is shaped by other people’s requests, or you feel used and then guilty for feeling used, that is enough. You need no diagnosis and no collapse first. In 22 years of practice I have watched many men hide pleasing behind competence, and I can tell when a helpful habit has become a pattern that needs work.
I usually begin with one recent yes and trace what happened in the seconds before it. I will tell you plainly what I see. These 6 questions can help you notice whether your yes has stopped being a choice.
Then it deserves your attention. Open next week’s calendar and count how many entries you actually chose. The rest are favours, add-ons and crises that started on someone else’s desk. The tiredness survives every weekend, and the irritation tends to surface at home, the one place it feels allowed.
I would want to know whose requests are untouchable for you, and since when. The answer separates a crowded quarter from a habit that refills the calendar every time you empty it. If your weeks look like this, book a session with me.
Yes, and the 2 wishes are not at war so much as guarding different things. Being the reliable one hands you a role and a reason to be valued. The longing for peace belongs to the part of you that never gets an evening off duty. So you say yes with a smile, feel boxed in by lunchtime and feel guilty about the box by evening.
I do not side with either. The helper in you is capable and kind, and the weary man in you is telling the truth about his limits. We listen to what each is defending, until yes and no are both things you decide instead of things that happen to you.
It often can. One short reply, an unanswered joke in the team channel or a friend who has not replied for a day, and you start combing through what you might have done. You scroll back through the thread, volunteer for something extra and only exhale once the tone warms up again.
Caring how things stand with colleagues and family is healthy, and I am not going to talk you out of it. What we change is the speed of the alarm. You learn to notice it before it has you fetching coffee for the whole office, to check the facts, and to simply ask someone whether you are all right.
That swing is very familiar to me. You jump in, pleased to be wanted, and soon afterwards you are annoyed with the very person you rescued. A few cool days follow, then guilt sends you back with another favour, and round it goes.
We take the loop apart slowly to find where the help curdles, which is usually the moment you handed over more than you had spare. I honour the generous impulse, and I will still hold you to account for the resentment, so that what you give is real and its edges are spoken.
A man who gives all week often has nothing left by Friday, and then he disappears. The door closes, the headphones go on, your answers to your partner shrink to logistics, or you lose yourself in a long ride. Vanishing has become your one route back to yourself.
Wanting time alone is entirely reasonable. I help you understand what the retreat shields, and to book that time openly while there is still something in the tank, so the people at home are not left decoding your silence.
Shape yourself around other people for long enough and your own preferences grow faint. Asked how you would like to spend Saturday, you draw a blank, or list errands for others. You are not empty. One talent has simply been exercised so hard that the rest of you stopped speaking up.
I help you discover what you want, what you value and what sort of life fits you, without handing you a ready-made answer. I will challenge you when you reach for someone else’s preference first, and stay curious about the man underneath.
Seen yourself in these questions? Talk it over on a free call, or choose a session time and begin.
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Tell me briefly what kind of support you are looking for.
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It helps to understand why you please, but what counts is that your next yes, and your next no, are different.
Working on people-pleasing with me will help you see what drives the reflex, recognise what keeps it running and change how you answer requests at work, at home and among friends. Knowing that you please people is a start. Doing it less is the point.
I take an active part. I will tell you what I notice, give you things to try and push back when you talk yourself out of change. Psychotherapy is my foundation, and men’s work, which I have studied since 2010, has added to it and deepened it. My dear friend and mentor Eli Buren has been a central influence, and I have sat in his work many times. Here I draw on Robert Glover, whose “No More Mr. Nice Guy” shows how a man chases approval and strikes private bargains to get it. These 6 questions describe what we work towards.
Related reading: Why can I never say no, even when I want to? and Why do I lose myself every time I love someone?.
We look beneath the favour itself. There is nearly always a private hope, fear or bargain underneath: helping earns affection, usefulness keeps me safe, never refusing means nobody walks away. Glover names these covert contracts: agreements the other side never signed and has never read.
You get my honest reading of your deals and which ones cost the most. I will also question lines such as “I just like helping”, which can be true and still hide something. When you are ready, book a session with me to begin.
Yes, with practice. Most men discover a tell: a knot below the ribs, a surge of eagerness, the words “happy to” already on the tongue. Catching the tell gives you a few seconds in which to decide.
In our sessions I help you slow the moment down and see what triggers it and what it guards against. Then you practise a simple pause, such as “let me check and get back to you”, until you can use it on an ordinary Monday at work.
Steadiness is not indifference. It is letting another person’s disappointment sit in the room without hurrying to repair it. At first your body may treat a refusal as a threat, with a pounding heart or burning cheeks.
I help you spot that reaction early and understand what it remembers, often a parent whose approval had to be earned. We find practical ways to let the feeling pass, and I ask you to practise small refusals between sessions, because that is where your nervous system learns.
A short refusal begins with being clear inside about your limits. Men who please tend to pad every no with reasons, regrets or invented plans, since a bare refusal feels impolite. The trouble is that people negotiate with reasons, and before long you are agreeing after all.
I help you find short, honest wording that sounds like you, and we often rehearse it with real people in mind: your manager, your mother, your partner, the friend who always needs a hand. I will push you when you bite back your answer, and equally when you hope people will simply guess.
A decision gets easier once guilt, routine and the hunger for approval are set to one side and you can see what you value. Men who please often run a quiet poll of who might be let down, and then pick the option with the fewest casualties.
I help you look at your options from the inside first and consider others second, rather than the other way round. I will give you my view and name it when you are dodging, but the decision is yours.
Rather ordinary, which is exactly the goal. You still give a friend a lift, because you feel like it. You log off on time without justifying it. Certain evenings belong to you, and the people who matter can rely on you to tell them when it is too much.
Between us we decide which habits stay and which can go. Your generosity and reliability are good qualities, and we do not throw them away. The aim is for them to come from choice, so being useful is something you offer rather than the price of being liked.
You can also send me an email
You do not need to explain it well. Describe one ordinary week, and we start there.
From the first hour I listen for the main thread, put a name to it with you and set a direction. You can arrive without a diagnosis, a theory about yourself or a sorted-out childhood.
This is part of my online psychotherapy, structured individual work on how you live and relate. If the pleasing lives mostly between you and your partner, and your partner will take part, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. And if you already know you will come for a while, a therapy bundle gives you real savings and a clear plan.
My first questions are simple: why now, where the yes hurts you most, what you have already attempted and what you hope will be different. We usually look at one concrete moment from the past week. Your history can come later.
By the end, I tell you how I understand your pattern and suggest a direction, and you decide whether my way of working suits you. If you want to ask me a few things first, book a free 30-minute call.
Individual work fits when the pleasing lives in you and turns up everywhere: at work, with family, with friends and with your partner. The habit usually started long before any of these people entered your life, so it can be worked on with just you on the call.
I bring continuity and honest challenge from week to week, so the work builds. Online psychotherapy explains my structured individual work more widely.
Couples therapy is the stronger choice when the relationship itself needs sustained work: you please your partner and then go cold, resentment has built up on both sides, or the 2 of you keep replaying the same loop.
In couples work I help you both see that loop, own your parts in it and find more secure ways of being together. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing, reaching well beyond one disagreement.
It depends on how strong the reflex is and how much space you have. Because pleasing is something you do every day, change needs regular contact.
For the reflexive yes, I usually suggest weekly or fortnightly video sessions at the start. I will say so if the gaps are too wide for anything to stick, or when we can meet less often. If a weekly slot clashes with travel, a few back-to-back sessions are also possible.
Choose a bundle once you know you want a run of sessions and would like the question of continuing settled in advance. For a man who books everyone else in first, reserving that time for yourself is already part of the change.
A bundle brings significant savings and the security of a plan. I can help you judge the likely scope, and the details are on therapy discounts and bundles.
You will know because the reflex has loosened. You can pause before answering, refuse without a speech and live with someone’s mild disappointment, without me to manage it for you.
We review openly, and I have no wish to keep you in sessions beyond their usefulness. Sessions can space out, pause or end, and coming back later about something new is no sign that this work failed.
Wondering whether this is the right page for you? Here is how it compares with the nearest options for men in this pattern.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online therapy for people-pleasing in men (this page) | The automatic yes at work, at home and with friends is what you want to change. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
| Online nice guy syndrome therapy | Pleasing is one part of a wider habit of hiding your needs and feeling unseen. | Video sessions over a few months |
| Online therapy for conflict avoidance in men | Disagreement, not requests, is where you freeze or give in. | A focused course of video sessions |
| Online therapy for burnout in men | Years of saying yes have left you drained and close to empty. | Video sessions close together at first |
It is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for men who say yes by reflex and earn their place by being useful. It helps you understand what the pleasing protects, often a fear of being disliked or no longer needed, and change how you respond to requests.
My page on online codependency and people pleasing therapy covers the general pattern for anyone, while this page is about how men please through competence, favours and being the dependable one. It belongs to online nice guy syndrome therapy.
Come when the yes is costing you sleep, time with the people you love or your own plans, or when resentment shows up more than you would like. You do not have to wait until you crash. If it bothers you, that is reason enough.
I look at who you cannot refuse and how long that has been true. When the reflex reaches every corner of your life, it deserves attention rather than another resolution.
Yes, it can help a great deal, although I cannot say how quickly. Pleasing is learned, usually early, and learned habits can be unlearned through understanding and practice. I do not teach tricks for refusing. I work on why the yes feels necessary.
In my clinical experience, the habit often began as a boy’s way of keeping a tense home calm, or of earning a moment of attention from a distracted, demanding father. Our attention would go to the job it did back then, and to what you can afford to try now.
Most will stay, and plenty will think more of you. Some will be taken aback at first. One or 2 friendships that rested entirely on your giving may shift, and that too is useful to learn.
I help you face the fear under the question, which is often whether you are wanted for yourself or only for what you do. Together we find a way to stay warm while giving less on autopilot, and to meet other people’s reactions honestly.
Usually because your help came with a wish attached that the other person never heard. When gratitude, warmth or loyalty fail to arrive, you feel exploited, although you struck the bargain alone. It is a familiar way of reaching for connection, not a flaw in you.
I help you notice the hope before you act on it, and then either say it out loud or let it go. Once the hope is spoken, other people can actually meet it.
We stay with the present: the people whose requests you grant, the toll it takes, the change you are after. Expect a question or 2 about how approval was handed out in your family. Before we finish, I share my reading of the pattern and a suggested first step.
You do not need to prepare anything. Once you have decided this time is for you, book your first session or begin with a free 30-minute call.
Think in terms of a first stretch of a couple of months, meeting weekly or fortnightly. In that time most men see the pattern sharply and have tried new responses in real life. Pleasing that grew out of a frightening or neglectful childhood usually asks for more time.
From 22 years of practice, I find that a clear first stretch with an honest review works better than open-ended drift. At the review, you and I weigh up what has shifted and choose the next step together.
Come alone first. A nudge from a partner, friend or parent is one of the most common reasons men start, and it is a fine reason. This work is about your own yes and no, which you find more easily without someone to please on the call. Video works well for it: you need a private room, headphones and a steady connection, wherever you are.
If the relationship turns out to need joint work, we can consider couples therapy by video later. If you are unsure, we can sort it out on a free call.
Like all my individual psychotherapy, this work is booked as online sessions of one hour with 50 minutes of therapy. See my prices page for today’s fees, shown in US dollars.
If you are planning several sessions, a therapy bundle saves 10 per cent and gives you a structured plan. The options are on therapy discounts and bundles.
Book a session online, or request a free 30-minute call if you want to talk first. Every time on the calendar appears in your own local time.
No time that suits? Send me a message, and we will find one. This booking is for you, not for anybody you are trying to keep happy.
You can also send me an email
I want therapy to help you understand your experience and make choices you can use in everyday life. We pay attention to feelings, needs and the responses that happen before you have time to think.
Our online room should offer enough trust and honesty to explore what is difficult. I bring attention and professional judgement. You bring your experience, questions and the right to say when something does not fit.
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P.S. I’ll call you in a bit!
