As an eight year-old, Allie found herself constantly in the middle of her parents’ fighting. She did her
best to make peace, but paid a huge price for doing so. Feeling forced to attend to her parent’s feelings
and needs was unconsciously interpreted by her to mean that her own feelings and needs were not
important. If perhaps either one of her parents was able to show concern for how she was feeling, she
might have drawn a different conclusion, believing that her feelings and needs do matter after all. But in
Allie’s case, her parents were so absorbed in their own drama that they not only failed to check in with
Allie, but even took advantage of her “willingness” to “help” them. As a result, Allie grew up to become
a person who is very tuned into other people’s feelings and needs and prioritizing other’s feelings over her
own. Allie developed what is called an accommodative personality or what people commonly call, a
people pleaser. In most cases, people become accommodators due to some early developmental and
relational derailment.
Such a personality style does not bode well for adult relationships. The biggest problem for an
accommodator is that the person is not aware that she prioritizes other people’s feelings and needs over
her own. She therefore tends to unconsciously give in to what others want, while at the same time feeling
resentment and anger towards them, often judging them as being selfish and demanding. The truth is, that
the accommodator never having learned that her needs matter, does not know what it means to
acknowledge, own, and express them. An accommodator lives in an isolated and lonely world, often
feeling no one understands her or cares about her.
In her marriage, Allie found herself often feeling the way she felt with her parents, that her needs don’t
matter and feeling angry at her husband. In truth, as a child, Allie also felt angry at her parents, but was
never given the opportunity to acknowledge, process, and express her anger. Now as an adult, she felt
more comfortable expressing her anger towards her husband who she often accused as being insensitive.
Although, her husband wasn’t perfect, he was generally a caring person who often encouraged Allie to tell
him what she wanted. But because this request felt so foreign to her, she could not communicate her
feelings and needs to him with any degree of ease.
Allie was still trapped in the same lonely world she experienced as a child with her parents.
Accommodators cannot connect emotionally because they do not have the ability to acknowledge their
feelings and needs and express them. Years of constantly dismissing one’s feelings and needs only
reinforces the unconscious belief that one’s needs don’t matter and is therefore doomed to be alone and
unhappy.
The good news is that this is not a permanent condition. When I explained to Allie how her childhood
experience unconsciously formed her belief that her feelings and needs didn’t matter, she almost instantly
felt empowered. When she was able to understand that the reason she felt alone and angry was that she
was unable to express her feelings and needs assertively, she slowly began to reclaim them. Yet, as much
as this new insight resonated deeply with her, she soon found out that applying this insight to real
situations was difficult and challenging. Learning to identify her needs and expecting others to take her
seriously felt overwhelming at times. The habit of being a people pleaser is hard to break. Learning to
speak up and tell her boss how she really felt about certain executive decisions filled her with unbearable
anxiety. At the same time, when her boss expressed appreciation for her opinions, she felt a deep sense of
hope and encouragement. Changing required constant awareness of how she was feeling in every
situation. At times, she felt exhausted by the effort, yet over time she grew, and felt like she was
becoming a happier person, especially when she experienced others taking her feelings and needs
seriously.
Understanding one’s present struggles in the context of one’s childhood experience, frees one to adopt a
new, more mature perspective. Recognizing why and how she had developed an accommodative
personality opened up the possibility for Allie of adopting a new, more empowering relationship with her
feelings and needs. As she began to learn how to listen to and prioritize her feelings and needs, and
practice expressing them in her relationships, Allie liberated herself from her lonely world of being a
people pleaser.