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14107 Steve Harper Interviews Susan Engel Psychotherapist, Social Worker and Certified EMDR Clinician

·26 min·1 clip

Engel links people pleasing to fight, flight, freeze, and the added “fawn” response.

1. Podcast Business News Network Platinum focuses on Steve Harper and Susan Engel discussing people pleasing and boundaries. 2. Steve Harper is the host, and Susan Engel is a psychotherapist, social worker, and certified EMDR clinician who explains the topic clinically. 3. The episode asks what people pleasing is really for, and Engel frames it as an early defense rather than simple politeness. 4. Steve opens with a job-search story about a friend, a resume, a VP contact, and a missing thank-you. 5. Engel says Steve did what he said he would do and calls that “the period at the end of the sentence.” 6. She argues that resentment after helping is information that something about the offer did not feel right. 7. Engel says people often offer help with an expectation of being owed something, even if they do not say it aloud. 8. She links people pleasing to early experiences in babyhood, toddlerhood, and childhood. 9. Engel says a child cannot fight caregivers and may instead freeze, run away, or hide under a desk. 10. She brings in “fight, flight, freeze, fawn” and identifies fawning as people pleasing driven by fear. 11. Engel describes fawning as fear of rejection, disapproval, and aloneness. 12. She says the behavior can become unconscious and automatic until someone brings it into consciousness. 13. Steve says he thought the pattern reflected low self-worth and trying to prove value to others. 14. Engel answers that the deeper pattern is an adaptation built around insecurity and necessity. 15. The pair discuss a “volume switch,” where awareness can lower the impulse to overhelp. 16. Engel notes that being overly responsible at one’s own expense is a clinical theme she and other EMDR therapists see. 17. The tone stays conversational, with Steve using his own behavior as an example and Engel correcting and expanding it. 18. The format is a back-and-forth interview with practical boundary language and a few interruptions for clarification. 19. People working on boundaries, caregiving habits, or fawning responses would likely benefit. 20. Listeners wanting celebrity gossip or fast business headlines would probably skip it.

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