In this short video, I explain why looking after everyone so often leaves you drained, and what shifts when you begin to count in your own life.
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Online codependency and people pleasing therapy helps you when keeping other people comfortable, calm or approving has quietly taken the place of your own needs. We meet one to one by video, in English, in 1-hour sessions with 50 minutes of therapy, at a time that suits your time zone wherever you are.
I help you understand how your safety and your sense of worth became bound up with being useful, and then practise giving, asking and refusing by choice. This page is one strand of my online attachment therapy, within my wider online psychotherapy. If a fear of being left is stronger than the urge to please, online anxious attachment therapy may suit you better.
To take the next step, arrange a free 30-minute call, reserve a video session, look over my client policy or send me a short message.
Online codependency and people pleasing therapy is for English-speaking adults, anywhere in the world, who hold everyone else together and lose sight of themselves along the way. You might be the dependable colleague, the family peacemaker or the partner who carries someone through hard years. You want to stay generous without it costing you your health.
Putting other people first can be part of several different patterns, and a few of them need their own focus. If one of these lines fits you better, the linked page is the stronger place to begin.
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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.
“In more than 20 years of sitting with people, I have never once met someone whose people pleasing was simply a matter of being too nice. Niceness is a cover story. What I usually find is a person who learned very early that love had a price, and who has been paying it ever since. Listen closely and you hear them asking ‘If I stop being helpful, will you still keep me?’ Close behind comes another thought: ‘Better that I manage alone than let anyone carry me.’ And very often a third, quieter request: ‘Lean on me, only do not look at what I feel.’ I do not try to make people less caring. I help them stop paying for every bit of closeness.”
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.
Mira is 39 and runs the admissions office of an international school in Dubai, where she moved from Johannesburg 7 years ago. She remembers every colleague’s birthday, covers shifts nobody else wants and phones her mother in South Africa every evening to talk her through her worries. Her husband calls her “the organiser”. Last month she cried in the car park for no reason she could name, then went back inside and smiled at a parent.
I would start with one ordinary Tuesday in Mira’s life and follow each moment she put herself last. In a first video session she would probably notice how fast she steps in, often before anyone has asked, and how much fear sits underneath that speed. That gives us something precise to work with.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have been holding other people up for years, and there is less and less of you left to do it with.
No special moment or perfect reason is required. A sense that your life runs on your effort alone, or that you are more tired than your circumstances explain, is enough. Nor do you need a diagnosis, a partner with a named problem or a collapse first. In 22 years of practice I have seen this pattern in countless forms, and I can usually tell when caring for others has turned into a way of vanishing.
I will help you see where your attention goes in an ordinary day, what keeps you giving past your limit and what needs to change first. Let the 6 questions below help you judge whether now is the moment to contact me.
If you are, that exhaustion is information. From outside you look fine, because everything keeps running. Inside, the day is a queue of other people’s needs: a manager’s deadline, a partner’s low mood, a parent’s call from another continent. Rest has to be earned.
I would look at how long this has gone on, who you carry and what your body does when you stop. That shows whether this is a demanding season or a pattern that follows you anywhere. If you see yourself here, book a session with me and we can map it together.
Both wishes are genuine, because each meets a different need. Being needed gives you a place and a purpose. Freedom would give you rest. So you may resent the people who lean on you, then feel lost the moment they stop.
I treat neither side as the problem. Psychosynthesis, my core training, meets such inner figures as parts of a whole person. We look at what the giver has shielded you from, often rejection, and what the tired part wants to say. The aim is care you choose, not care you owe.
Many people do it without noticing. A sigh, a delayed reply or a closed door sets off an alarm. You check whether someone is cross, replay your words and repair the atmosphere before anyone names a problem. Until they seem settled, you cannot be.
Wanting harmony and closeness is a fair wish, and I will not treat it as a weakness. What I help you change is how quickly you take charge of everyone else’s feelings. We catch the moment the alarm sounds, ask whose feeling it is and practise asking openly instead of guessing and fixing.
This loop confuses many people. When someone struggles, you move in at once with time and advice. Then, without warning, you feel trapped and want to go silent for days. Guilt follows and pulls you straight back into helping.
We slow the loop down and find the point where helping tips into feeling caged, and where retreat tips back into guilt. A specific trigger usually sets off each turn, such as a request that lands as a duty. I have compassion for these protective moves, and I will ask you to own the ones that do harm.
Often, yes. When another person’s distress overwhelms you, you switch into capable mode: lists, logistics, solutions. You stay useful while your own feelings go offline, so nobody, including you, knows how you really are.
I see this as protection, and I will not shame you for needing distance. I help you notice what it shields you from, often helplessness, so you can stay with your own reaction before acting. You learn to say “I can help tomorrow, not tonight” before quiet exhaustion sets in.
After years of adjusting to others, your preferences can fall almost silent. You choose the film someone else wants and agree with whoever spoke last. Asked what you want, you go blank. Your self has not gone. It has been on standby while you kept everyone comfortable.
I help you tell the peace-keeping habits apart from the wishes that are truly yours. Often that means looking at the role your family gave you, sometimes handed down through generations: the helper, the one who never caused trouble. I will challenge you, but I will not hand you a new identity.
If you recognised yourself in these questions, start with a free call to talk it through, or book a session if you already know you are ready.
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Tell me briefly what kind of support you are looking for.
Include your country and time zone so we can discuss whether online work together is possible and find a suitable time.
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Seeing why you put yourself last matters, but the work has to change what you actually say when the next request arrives.
This work will help you see what happens inside you when you put others first, recognise the fears that keep it going and change how you give, ask and decline. Knowing where your people pleasing began is valuable, yet on its own it rarely touches the reflex that says yes before you have thought.
In 22 years of practice I have found that this pattern shifts when the therapist is honest and active, not merely kind. I will guide you, name what I notice and question stories such as “it is quicker if I just do it myself”, including any attempt to please me. The 6 questions below show where we are heading.
For men: online nice guy syndrome therapy and online therapy for people-pleasing in men. Related reading: Why do I lose myself every time I love someone?, Why can I never say no, even when I want to? and Why do I feel like I am losing myself?.
The overcommitment, the resentment and the fatigue are real, but they are consequences. Underneath them sit a few firm beliefs: that you matter only when useful, that conflict is dangerous, that everything falls apart if you let go.
I tell you what I see, what to tackle first and which explanations keep you stuck, such as “I am just a giving person”. We also listen to your body, which often knows a yes is coming before you do. When you feel ready, book a session with me.
You can learn to notice it sooner. The reflex has a sequence: a request, a flicker of tension, a quick scan of the other face, and the yes is out. Once you feel the flicker, you have a moment to say “let me come back to you on that”.
We slow these moments down and study what triggers them and what the yes protects. Spotting the pattern is not enough. We rehearse other replies, first on screen with me and then in your week, until a pause feels possible with your manager or your mother.
Steadiness does not mean ceasing to care or pretending you feel fine. It means staying present enough to choose your response, instead of rushing to make the disappointment vanish. For many people pleasers, even mild displeasure feels physically dangerous.
I help you recognise that alarm earlier and understand what your nervous system is reacting to, often an old situation in which keeping someone happy really was essential. This needs daily practice between our sessions, and I will hold you to it.
Clear speech starts with knowing what you feel, what you need and what is yours to carry. After years tuned to others, all three are hard to find. So you hint, over-explain or stay silent and hope someone notices, and the unspoken needs leak out as resentment.
I help you find words that are honest, short and proportionate, such as “I cannot do that this week”. I will challenge you when you silence yourself, and also when you expect others to read your mind or repay everything you have given.
Decisions clear once you separate fear, duty and habit from what you actually value. People with this pattern often stay in jobs or partnerships far too long, because leaving feels like abandoning someone who depends on them.
I help you weigh your options and what each would ask of you, including for the people you love. I will give you my view and say so when guilt is answering for you. The choice remains yours. If your partner refuses to join you, online couples therapy alone looks at that situation directly.
The change has to show up in your real week, not only on our calls. You might protect one evening for yourself, share the housework differently or let a sibling handle their own crisis for once. Some people will welcome this, and some will push back.
Together we sort what must shift from what is fine as it is. Your loyalty and your skill at reading people are real strengths, and we keep them. The aim is that you use them by choice, with enough left over for your own life.
You can also send me an email
Bring no label and no neat explanation. We start with how your days actually go.
From the first session I listen closely, help you put words to the central difficulty and set a direction. People who please often find it hard to talk about themselves, so we begin with something concrete, such as last week.
This is structured individual work within my online psychotherapy, and one strand of my online attachment therapy. If the imbalance sits mainly in your relationship and your partner is willing, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. If you expect a longer stretch of work, a therapy bundle gives you real savings and the security of a plan.
I ask why you are coming now, where you feel most stretched and what you would like to be different. I may ask you to walk me through a recent request you could not refuse. Your life story can wait.
By the end I share my first understanding and suggest a focus. Then you judge whether my way of working helps, and I would much rather hear an honest no than a polite yes. A free 30-minute call is there if you would like to talk first.
Individual work fits when the pattern lives mainly in you: in your history, your beliefs about your worth and how you move through work, family and friendship. For pleasers and rescuers that is nearly always so. We can explore every relationship without anyone else joining the call.
For many, this is the first hour in years that stays entirely on them. I give you direction, continuity and honest challenge. Online psychotherapy describes my structured individual work as a whole.
Couples therapy fits better when the relationship itself needs sustained attention and both of you are willing. If one gives and the other takes in a way you both recognise, or resentment has hardened between you, joint work can reach further.
In couples work I help you both see the cycle between you, own your part and build fairer ways of caring for each other. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing, and some people work alone first so they can take part as themselves.
The pace depends on how stretched you are and how much continuity the work needs. Therapy can easily become one more duty squeezed in around everyone else, so the rhythm must be realistic.
I usually recommend weekly or fortnightly sessions at first, at a time you protect from other people’s requests. I will say honestly if the gaps are too long, if a closer stretch would help or when we can meet less often. Back-to-back sessions over a few days also work for people who travel.
Choose a bundle once you know several sessions lie ahead and you want a commitment that cannot quietly give way when someone else needs you. Pleasers drop their own appointments first. A planned course guards that time.
A bundle lowers the cost of each session and gives the work an agreed shape. I am glad to help you judge whether it fits. The options are on therapy discounts and bundles, and in the cards further down this page.
The work has done its job when you have more ownership, clarity and choice, and need less support. People may still turn to you, but you can decline without days of guilt and rest without earning it.
I review progress with you openly and will not encourage you to depend on therapy, which would only be the old pattern in a new setting. We can meet less often, pause or stop once the work is complete. Coming back later with a fresh difficulty does not mean anything failed.
Unsure whether this is the right place to begin? Here is how this page sits beside the options people who put others first tend to weigh up.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online codependency and people pleasing therapy (this page) | You keep others happy at your own expense and want to start counting too. | Weekly or fortnightly 1-hour video sessions |
| Online attachment therapy | You want to understand your whole way of relating, beyond pleasing and rescuing. | 1-hour video sessions at a pace you choose |
| Online anxious attachment therapy | The fear of being left is louder than the urge to please. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
| Online therapy after narcissistic abuse | Your giving was exploited by someone who manipulated or controlled you. | Steady, carefully paced video sessions |
It is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for adults who routinely put other people’s needs, moods and approval ahead of their own, often at a real cost to their health. It helps you understand why your worth became tied to being useful, and change how you give, ask and refuse.
I work in depth, with your feelings, your body, the different parts of you and the role you were handed in your family. It is part of my online attachment therapy, which sits within my online psychotherapy.
Come when the pattern is costing you sleep, health or self-respect, or you cannot remember the last thing you did purely for yourself. There is no need to wait for a breakdown. If you feel the scales have tipped too far, trust that feeling.
I look at how long the pattern has lasted, how much of your life it reaches and what happens when you try to change it. If you have tried to set limits and slid back, or your body has started to protest, it deserves proper attention.
Yes. Your partner does not need to change, or even agree there is a problem, for this work to help you. I cannot promise how your partner will respond, and I do not offer quick fixes. What I offer is serious work on your side of the pattern, the only side you can change.
In my clinical experience, people living with a partner who drinks, rages or sinks into long low spells usually arrive asking how to help that person. I would turn the question round: how do you stay connected to yourself whatever your partner does?
No. It is a very common fear, and it almost never comes true. Years of pleasing leave people thoughtful, and that does not vanish. What changes is that their care becomes something they can afford.
Self-respect and selfishness are very different things. Some people around you may be surprised or uneasy when you start to say no, and we will prepare for that. You will need to tolerate their reaction without sliding back into the old role, and I will help you do it.
Because both are ways of staying safe. Giving keeps people close and conflict away. Shutting down protects you once the giving has drained you. Many people move between the two within a single week and feel ashamed of it. It is how you learned to handle closeness and fear, not a flaw in you.
Together we map when you tip one way or the other, what each move buys you and who pays for it. Then we build steadier options: help you can sustain, space that does not mean disappearing and asking for care without apology.
I will ask who you look after, where you feel most stretched and what happens when you take time for yourself, and a little about your role in your family as a child. Before we end, I tell you how I see it and where I suggest we start.
There is nothing to prepare, and no need to make a good impression. If you notice yourself trying to be an easy client, that is useful, and we can look at it together. Book your first session or begin with a free call.
Plan for a course of sessions over several months rather than a handful of conversations. That is often enough to understand the pattern and practise new responses until they hold. Roots that go back a long way usually need longer.
From 22 years of practice, I recommend agreeing a clear first stretch and then reviewing it honestly. We look at what has changed in your days and relationships, and decide together whether to continue, space the sessions out or stop.
Yes, and it suits many people pleasers well. You work from your own space, keep going if you relocate and see a therapist outside your local circle, so nobody you know sees you arrive.
Set yourself up with headphones, a reliable connection and a door you can close. If the people you look after are at home, a parked car or a booked room at work is often easier. Most people start alone, and we can discuss the format on a free call.
Each appointment is a 1-hour online session of individual psychotherapy, with 50 minutes of therapy that belong to you alone. My current fees are listed in US dollars on the prices page.
For a longer course, a bundle brings the cost of each session down by 10 per cent and gives you the security of a plan agreed in advance. You will find the choices on therapy discounts and bundles.
Choose a time and book directly, or request a free 30-minute call if you would rather talk first. A short note about who you look after is plenty, and the calendar shows times in your own time zone.
If no time fits, or you feel close to the end of your rope, contact me directly. I keep some room for acute cases, usually a time within days, and acute online psychotherapy explains that help. Then book the session, and let it be one appointment you keep for yourself.
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!
