The Disease to Please cover art

The Disease to Please

Curing the People-Pleasing Syndrome

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The Disease to Please

By: Harriet Braiker
Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
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About this listen

Who are people pleasers? They are the people who say yes, when they want to say no - the perennial nice person whose resentment is concealed behind their public “happy face”. Now best-selling author and frequent Oprah guest Dr. Harriet Braiker offers help for anyone who has ever felt the resentment of giving 100 percent of themselves to others and getting nothing in return.

The Disease to Please explodes the dangerous myth that “people-pleasing” is a benign problem. It is the first book to treat people pleasing as a serious psychological syndrome, and it breaks new ground in its approach to offer a cure.

Dr. Braiker offers a 21-day action plan for curing The Disease to Please. A daily psychological workout and skills-training program, it will help listeners replace the compulsion to comply with a more conscious and reasoned choice to care. The Disease to Please includes:

  • Extensive case studies
  • Diary and journal formats to help recovery
  • An effective three-stage short-term therapy approach
©2001 Harriet B. Braiker, PhD (P)2005 McGraw Hill-Ascent Audio Communication & Social Skills Personal Development Relationships Self-Esteem

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Most relevant  
i have read many books on codependency, boundaries and people pleasing. This book is definitely the best. The author breaks down the root cause of the problem into mindset, habits and feelings, which is spot on now that I am loooing back at my past behavioural patterns. Life changing!

THE best!

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Perhaps this is my whole problem and the reasons behind my setbacks. Really recommending this book to everyone who suffers the same

Just what I needed

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Brilliant! So many illustrative examples and theory. It feels like an emotional tool kit.

What type of people pleaser are you?

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I use this with "No More Mr Nice" and it ties un very nicely. It is very insigtfull and helpfull.

However: There is only about 60% of the whole book in the audiobook. It misses all the exercises and the 21 Day Plan - the crux of the whole thing.

A great resource, but it's not all there.

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I would challenge anyone to read this and not find themselves in it somewhere. As a recovering people pleaser, this book has highlighted the stark truth behind it and helped me tremendously. I don’t want to give too much away, but if you’re a people pleaser you might be in for a shock as to why!

A bible for the chronic people pleaser

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Brilliant! Captures instantly personality traits with instant feedback. It’s black and white, straight to the point and yet covers everything you need to know. I was a people-pleasure for many years, for survival! An inner wisdom showed me this path as the safest in those moments. However these days I smile inwardly at my then survival skills as nowadays having so much self-awareness I respond to situations far differently.
This book has highlighted areas I can still work on - we are all in working progress and beautiful diamonds 💎 at our core. Thank you for really bringing to the forefront areas I must change and consider seriously 🙏🏼 and the reasons why I must do it 👏🏼

Insightful

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At first this made me wince
Then it freed me - I needed this thank you

Helped so much

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Very well written and into the point without many useless story like other books and also explain the detail of issue , I wished she spend more time in talking about the solutions

Great book

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Note the quizzes, and sometimes whole examples and text (even Behavioral Adjustment parts, the 21 days plan, etc.), are missing from the audiobook version.

Once someone told me that I act precisely like it was described in their psychology book. Everyone thinks they are special and unique, so hearing that you are just a classic example, can hurt your special feelings.

This is a very personal book. There are several quizzes throughout the book, but the first one is the most important. It's showcasing what areas feed your "disease": mindset, habbits, feelings. The level of overlap between your personality and the "psychology book material" will differ, but just a warning that it can be very scary to think that this is a book, not written for you in particular, but for so many other people. First, it is scary, then it is hopeful. Maybe this means there is a studied "cure". Maybe reading this book will be easier / cheaper than doing years of therapy (at least for the problem identification part).

I've learned that I'm addicted to pleasing others and that I do a lot of things just for random marks of appreciation. So, DON'T like this review. It would help me :)

Now, do you have any book recommendations for perfectionism?

Audiobook lacks the quizzes, plan, and content

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