> Skip to content
  • Published: 7 September 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529949612
  • Imprint: Square Peg
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $55.00

Are You Mad At Me?

Stop Focusing on What Others Think, Start Living for You

  • Meg Josephson




A psychologist and viral TikTok star decodes the six archetypes of people pleasing, revealing how to unlearn this trauma response and find true connection with yourself and others

Are you constantly worried about what people think of you, if they like you, if they’re mad at you?

This book will help you understand why. We’ve all heard of fight, flight or freeze. Psychotherapist Meg Josephson reveals a fourth common yet overlooked trauma response: ‘fawning’, or people-pleasing. If you ever:

• Leave social situations overthinking something you’ve said
• Overlook your own boundaries to make other people happy
• Struggle to say what you really want – even to yourself

. . . you might be fawning. In Are You Mad at Me?, Meg explodes the idea that people-pleasing is a personality trait, exposing it to be an instinct learned in childhood to become more appealing to a perceived threat in order to feel safe. Yet many people are stuck in this way of being for their whole lives.

Weaving her own moving story with case studies and thought-provoking exercises, Meg will show you how to identify your needs, rethink conflict and build stronger connections: empowering you to stop focusing on what others think and start living for you.

  • Published: 7 September 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529949612
  • Imprint: Square Peg
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $55.00

Praise for Are You Mad At Me?

I can count on one hand the books that have settled my nervous system within the first three pages of reading. It’s so rare to be able to say: I needed this book, me too, thank you.

Holly Whitaker, author of QUIT LIKE A WOMAN

Are You Mad at Me unlocks a secret door in the house of healing: understanding the fawn response. Honest, relatable, and totally binge-worthy, Josephson's work has the power to change your entire life. If you struggle with that screensaver type of anxiety that's always on - constantly worrying that you're doing something wrong or that people don't like you - this book will feel like coming up for air. Read it and get free.

Katherine Morgan Schafler, author of THE PERFECTIONIST'S GUIDE TO LOSING CONTROL

This book offers a cure for chronic people pleasing. If you’ve ever compromised your principles to gain another person’s approval, Meg Josephson is here to help with revealing insight and sage advice

Adam Grant, author of THINK AGAIN

Was Are You Mad at Me? written especially for me? It sure felt like it. For all the people-pleasers, peacekeepers, and fawners out there: Read this book now. My copy is already well-thumbed and heavily underlined--and, no, you can't borrow it! The book, brimming with wisdom and humanity, helped me change my relationship with myself by understanding the patterns of the past that I was still living out today. Thank you, Meg, for freeing me from so much I had buried. It is no overestimation to say that this book is a gamechanger

Susannah Cahalan, author of BRAIN ON FIRE

Hallelujah—at last, salvation for all of us who’ve ever agonized over an awkward text exchange, wondered if we embarrassed ourselves at a party, or become convinced that a friendship cooling meant we’d unwittingly committed some grave sin. Meg Josephson’s instant self-help classic is wise, actionable, and could change your life

Ada Calhoun, author of WHY WE CAN'T SLEEP

Meg Josephson has given the world a huge gift in Are You Mad at Me? For all of us who've spent our lives feeling like we were in trouble—with friends, bosses, spouses, children, everyone—this book offers explanations, comfort, and best of all, solutions. I'm grateful this book exists because I needed Josephson's gentle wisdom and empowering message now more than ever

Christie Tate, author of GROUP

Psychotherapist Josephson debuts with a cogent exploration of the least-known yet ‘arguably most common’ threat response: fawning…. Josephson’s lucid prose and smart mix of clinical expertise, personal disclosure, and pertinent case studies makes for a uniquely actionable resource. She also provides an insightful look at the cultural factors that influence fawning…Recovering people pleasers will find plenty to chew on

Publishers Weekly