Beyond People-Pleasing

When competence hides exhaustion

Many people are quietly holding up the world — managing logistics, smoothing over tension, remembering everyone's needs, and stepping in before things fall apart. From the outside, it looks like competence and reliability. On the inside, it can feel like pressure, resentment, and a deep disconnection from what we actually need.

Psychotherapist and boundary expert Terri Cole coined the term high-functioning codependency to describe this pattern of over-giving and over-responsibility — one that often goes unnoticed precisely because it looks so capable. In Terri's work, these patterns are adaptations shaped by early relational environments. Many people learned to stay safe, connected, or valued by anticipating others' needs, managing emotional dynamics, and becoming indispensable long before they had the option not to.

In this Learning Lab, Terri and Frank come together to explore how these patterns form, how they live in our nervous systems and relationships, and what it means to move toward greater self-respect — without losing care for others.

About the Program

As host of this Learning Lab, Frank Anderson brings an integrative, trauma-informed perspective to understanding people-pleasing, over-functioning, and chronic responsibility. Throughout the program, Frank serves as the through-line — helping frame the conversation, slow it down, and place these patterns within a broader understanding of trauma, development, and survival.

In the main teaching, our special guest, Terri Cole, explores high-functioning codependency — where it often begins, how it shows up in adult relationships, and why people who are "the responsible one" can find it so difficult to step back or say no. She examines the internal pressure that often accompanies this role, including the fear of letting others down, the discomfort of not being needed, and the deeply held belief that one's value lies in holding everything together.

Terri addresses the emotional and relational cost of always taking care of everything, including chronic resentment, exhaustion, and the gradual loss of connection to one's own wants and limits. She explores why boundary-setting is rarely just a skill issue, but often a deeply emotional process tied to attachment, identity, and long-standing loyalty to roles that once ensured belonging or safety.

Bringing his integrative, trauma-informed clinical lens into dialogue with Terri's work, Frank Anderson serves as the primary integrative guide for this Learning Lab. He helps translate insight into understanding by synthesizing developmental history, attachment dynamics, and nervous system organization, and by supporting participants in integrating these perspectives across clinical, relational, and lived experience. Together, they invite careful reflection on where over-doing remains protective, how these patterns are maintained over time, and how a more self-honoring way of relating can emerge gradually — without withdrawal, rigidity, or disruption to meaningful relationships.

Key Themes We'll Explore

• What high-functioning codependency means — and how it differs from classic stereotypes
• How early roles and expectations shape over-giving and over-managing
• The emotional and relational cost of being "the one who always handles it"
• Why boundary-setting can feel threatening or destabilizing
• How these patterns live in the nervous system and relational field
• Pathways toward more balanced, self-honoring care for ourselves and others

This Program Is For

This Learning Lab supports reflective clinical practice and case conceptualization rather than prescriptive techniques. Content explores high-functioning codependency as an adaptive survival strategy, with attention to developmental context, nervous system dynamics, and relational patterns.

Meet the Host & Special Guest

Frank Anderson, MD — Host

Psychiatrist • Trauma Specialist • Educator

Frank Anderson, MD is a psychiatrist, trauma specialist, and educator known for his integrative, depth-oriented approach to healing. Drawing from neuroscience, developmental trauma theory, relational psychotherapy, and contemplative practices, Frank helps people understand patterns like over-functioning and people-pleasing as adaptive survival strategies rather than personal failures. As host of the Learning Lab, Frank serves as the integrative anchor — framing, contextualizing, and guiding the work so insights can be digested and applied with care, realism, and respect for each person's pace.

Terri Cole — Special Guest

Psychotherapist • Boundary Expert • Author

Terri Cole, MSW, LICSW is a licensed psychotherapist, relationship expert, and boundary specialist with over two decades of clinical experience. She is widely known for coining high-functioning codependency®, offering language and clarity for patterns that often hide beneath competence, caretaking, and success. Terri is the author of Boundary Boss and Too Much, and the forthcoming Father Wound (October 2026). Her work helps people disentangle care from self-abandonment and build relationships rooted in honesty, clarity, and self-respect. Her teaching is validating, direct, and deeply human.

About the Learning Lab

The Learning Lab is designed to offer both depth and digestion: time to learn from trusted voices and space to reflect. Rather than rushing toward change, this format invites thoughtful awareness and realistic shifts that unfold over time, held and led by Frank as host.

Start Watching Now

Join Frank Anderson, MD and Terri Cole for an on-demand Learning Lab on high-functioning codependency, boundaries, and reclaiming self-respect.

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