When Pleasing You Is Killing Me

While people pleasers can be some of the nicest people you'll meet, they have an uncanny knack for finding themselves in relationships with controllers. Knowing how pleasers are motivated by duty and obligation, the controllers will persuade, cajole, argue, and convince, knowing they can erode the resolve of the pleaser rather quickly. This, of course, leaves the pleaser with residual feelings of hurt, anxiety, and resentment. Because pleasers are not as skilled in the art of coercion as the controller, they can collapse in feelings of futility. In the book, When Pleasing You Is Killing Me, Dr. Les Carter explains how the pleaser can become freed from futility by choosing to stay out of the controller's power games altogether. Drawing upon decades of counseling with a wide array of frustrated nice people, Dr. Carter gives sound direction to those seeking to reclaim their true selves. Relationship boundaries are explained, assertiveness is taught, and insights are offered as the reader is guided into a paradigm shift regarding the ways to respond to a controller.

Are you one who likes to keep the peace even when it comes at a high emotional price for yourself? Do your attempts to resolve differences with a controller leave you feeling wrung out and discouraged? Do you sense that your best traits (goodness, kindness, cooperation) somehow become a disadvantage with an overbearing counterpart? These questions and many more are addressed in the book, When Pleasing You Is Killing Me. With decades of experience as a psychotherapist, Dr. Les Carter takes you inside his counseling office, inviting you to share in real life stories of people just like you who are trying to make sense of persistent, controlling demands from all sorts of controlling people. A major premise explained by Dr. Carter is that every person has a built-in inclination to be controlling, but as maturation happens, controlling behaviors diminish. People pleasers are naturally positioned to increase their maturity since they are already predisposed to being loving, kind, and respectful. But when they routinely butt heads with controlling counterparts, their maturation is stunted as they predictably get pulled into power forms of communication that include coercion, shaming, accusations, defensiveness, anger, suppression, and the like. In the book, Dr. Carter will recount how real life pleasers developed relationship boundaries by incorporating assertiveness skills, ceasing unnecessary defensiveness, and setting aside false guilt for inner trust. Readers will be inspired to set their own pace in life, as opposed to letting the controller call the shots.

Dr. Les Carter has maintained a private counseling practice since 1980 when he affiliated with the Minirth-Meier Clinic in Richardson, Texas where he worked for 25 years. Since 2005 he has practiced at the Southlake Psychiatric and Counseling Center near Dallas, Texas. He is a best selling author of books such as Enough About You, Let's Talk About Me, and The Anger Trap. For years he conducted popular anger workshops and he has produced podcasts and videos at MarriagePath.com. He is a graduate of Baylor University and earned the Ph.D. Degree from the University of North Texas.