Most of us have experienced the effect of another person believing something about us.
A teacher who seemed convinced that we were capable may have helped us become more confident. A parent who repeatedly described us as difficult, sensitive, clever, selfish, responsible or unreliable may have influenced how we came to understand ourselves. A partner who expects rejection may begin to interpret ordinary moments of distance as evidence that abandonment is coming.
Psychology sometimes describes this process through the Pygmalion Effect: the idea that expectations can influence behaviour and performance.
But from a psychodynamic perspective, something deeper may also be happening.
We do not simply respond to what other people expect from us. Over time, we may begin to experience ourselves through their expectations. Their assumptions, emotional responses and ways of relating to us can gradually become part of our internal picture of who we are.
An expectation that originally belonged to somebody else may eventually feel like a fact about ourselves.
This raises an important therapeutic question:
Whose expectations am I living inside?
What Is the Pygmalion Effect?
The Pygmalion Effect refers to the way expectations about another person can influence how that person behaves or performs.
If someone expects us to succeed, they may give us more encouragement, attention or opportunity. We may respond by becoming more confident and engaged.
If someone expects us to fail, they may become more critical, distant or controlling. We may become anxious, defensive or hesitant, increasing the likelihood of the very difficulties they expected.
This is sometimes described as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But expectations are not communicated only through words.
They are also communicated through tone of voice, facial expression, patience, disappointment, enthusiasm, suspicion, curiosity and countless small relational signals.
A child quickly learns not only what adults say about them, but also how adults experience them.
Are they welcomed?
Are they treated as troublesome?
Does somebody seem delighted by their curiosity?
Are they expected to cope without help?
Do adults become anxious when they are upset?
Are their achievements celebrated while their vulnerability is ignored?
These repeated experiences contribute to the development of an internal sense of self.
We First Discover Ourselves Through Other People
None of us begins life with a fully formed understanding of who we are.
Our earliest sense of ourselves develops in relationship.
Long before children can think, This is the kind of person I am, they are already absorbing how important people respond to them.
British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott described the caregiver’s face as a kind of psychological mirror.
When a baby looks towards a parent or caregiver, what comes back matters.
Ideally, the caregiver does not merely impose their own emotional state upon the child. They respond to what they perceive in the baby. Something of the child’s experience is recognised and returned in a form the child can gradually begin to understand.
We might think of this very simply.
A distressed child communicates distress. A sufficiently attuned adult responds in a way that conveys:
Something is happening to you. I can see it. It is difficult, but it can be survived.
Through thousands of interactions of this kind, the child begins to discover something about themselves.
Their feelings can be recognised.
Their needs can be responded to.
Their excitement can be shared.
Their distress does not necessarily destroy the relationship.
But the psychological mirror is never completely neutral.
Parents and caregivers have their own histories, fears, hopes and expectations.
A child may therefore also encounter versions of themselves that are shaped by the adults around them.
You are the sensible one.
You have always been difficult.
You are just like your father.
You are the clever one in this family.
You don’t need anybody.
You worry too much.
You are the one who keeps everyone together.
Repeated often enough, these descriptions can become powerful.
When Expectations Become Part of Our Identity
Children depend upon the people around them.
This makes their interpretations particularly influential.
If a parent repeatedly experiences a child as fragile, the child may gradually become anxious about taking risks.
If a family depends upon one child to be mature and responsible, that child may learn that being cared for themselves is somehow dangerous or selfish.
If achievement brings admiration while uncertainty brings disappointment, the child may learn that success is not simply something they enjoy. It becomes something they must maintain in order to preserve connection.
Eventually, these expectations may no longer feel as though they came from anybody else.
They become:
I am fragile.
I am the difficult one.
I must be responsible.
I cannot disappoint people.
I have to succeed.
I should be able to cope.
The original relationship disappears from view.
What remains is an apparently self-evident truth.
Conscious Beliefs and Deeper Relational Expectations
Some expectations are easy to recognise.
A person may consciously believe:
My father expected me to become a doctor.
Or:
My teachers always thought I was intelligent.
But deeper relational expectations can be harder to identify because they are experienced rather than consciously remembered.
Someone may enter a relationship expecting that if they become dependent, they will eventually be disappointed.
Another person may assume that disagreement will lead to rejection.
Someone else may experience another person’s independence as evidence that they are no longer loved.
These expectations often do not appear as clear thoughts.
They may emerge as feelings, reactions or assumptions.
A delayed reply becomes:
You are losing interest.
A disagreement becomes:
You do not respect me.
A request for space becomes:
You are abandoning me.
A partner’s sadness becomes:
I have failed.
The emotional expectation arrives before reflection has had time to begin.
How Expectations Can Help Create What They Predict
Psychoanalysis uses the term projective identification to describe one way in which emotional expectations can become organised between people.
The concept can sound complicated, but the underlying process is familiar.
Imagine someone who deeply expects other people to become rejecting.
They may become vigilant for signs of rejection.
Because they are anxious, they may repeatedly seek reassurance, question the other person’s intentions or interpret ambiguous behaviour negatively.
Their partner may initially reassure them.
Eventually, however, the partner may feel mistrusted, controlled or exhausted and begin to withdraw.
The withdrawal then seems to confirm the original belief:
I knew you would leave me.
The expectation was not invented. It may have originated in very real earlier experiences.
But it also influenced the relationship in ways that helped create the outcome that was feared.
This is one reason psychotherapy is interested not only in what we think about relationships, but in what we unconsciously expect relationships to become.
A Family Role That Became a Life
Consider a composite example.
Daniel grew up in a family in which his mother struggled emotionally and his father worked long hours. From an early age he was praised for being unusually mature.
Relatives described him as:
“the strong one.”
Daniel rarely caused problems. He performed well at school, helped with his younger siblings and learned not to ask for much.
His competence became something everyone admired.
As an adult, Daniel became successful professionally. Colleagues relied upon him. Friends came to him with their problems. His partner appreciated his steadiness.
Yet Daniel began therapy after experiencing a period of exhaustion and anxiety.
One of the most difficult discoveries was that he did not simply like being strong.
He felt he had no alternative.
Needing support made him feel ashamed.
Not knowing what to do felt dangerous.
Disappointing somebody produced disproportionate anxiety.
What had once been a valued family identity had gradually become a psychological obligation.
The expectation was positive.
But it was still restrictive.
Positive Expectations Can Become Burdens
The Pygmalion Effect is often discussed as though positive expectations are necessarily beneficial.
Often they are.
Being believed in can be profoundly important.
But positive expectations can also become imprisoning when they leave too little room for the person to change.
Someone may become:
the clever one, who feels unable to admit confusion;
the strong one, who cannot ask for help;
the responsible one, who feels guilty when putting themselves first;
the successful one, who fears failure because it threatens their identity;
the cheerful one, who learns that sadness makes other people uncomfortable.
These identities can bring genuine strengths.
The difficulty begins when a role becomes compulsory.
A person may then spend enormous psychological energy remaining recognisable to others.
The question becomes not simply:
Who am I?
but:
Who am I allowed to be without disappointing the people whose recognition matters to me?
Attachment and the Expectations We Carry Into Relationships
Early relationships do not determine our adult lives in a simple or mechanical way.
But they can influence what we expect intimacy to feel like.
Through attachment relationships, we develop expectations about closeness, dependence, separation and repair.
Can another person remain interested in us when we are difficult?
Can disagreement be survived?
Can somebody love us without controlling us?
Can we rely upon another person without losing ourselves?
Can someone need space without abandoning us?
Can we be disappointed without the relationship collapsing?
These expectations often become particularly visible in romantic relationships because intimacy activates older patterns of hope and fear.
We may discover that we are responding not only to the person in front of us, but also to relationships that came before them.
When Couples Become Trapped in Fixed Stories
Couples can gradually develop powerful expectations about one another.
“You never listen.”
“You always overreact.”
“You don’t care about anything.”
“You are controlling.”
“You are selfish.”
“You cannot cope.”
Sometimes there is truth in these observations.
But once a description becomes fixed, it can begin organising the relationship.
Consider another composite example.
Emma believes that Mark is emotionally unavailable.
When she feels uncertain, she approaches him urgently and asks why he never communicates.
Mark experiences these conversations as criticism and pressure. He withdraws.
Emma experiences his withdrawal as proof that he is emotionally unavailable.
Mark, meanwhile, has come to believe that Emma is impossible to reassure.
Because he expects any conversation to escalate, he delays raising difficult topics.
Emma discovers that he has been holding something back and becomes more upset.
Mark concludes:
“This is exactly why I don’t tell you things.”
Both partners now possess evidence for their expectations.
Each person’s behaviour helps evoke the very response they fear.
The relationship becomes organised around two increasingly rigid stories.
Couples therapy can sometimes help partners become curious about these patterns rather than simply arguing over which description is correct.
Bion, Containment and the Expectation That Feelings Can Be Thought About
Wilfred Bion offered another important way of thinking about expectations.
He was interested in what happens when emotional experiences become too overwhelming to think about.
At such moments, another person’s capacity to remain emotionally present can be extremely important.
Bion’s idea of containment describes a relationship in which difficult emotional experience can be received, thought about and gradually returned in a more manageable form.
This does not mean fixing somebody’s feelings.
Nor does it mean telling them that everything will be fine.
It means conveying something more subtle:
This feeling may be difficult, but it is not beyond thought.
That expectation can itself be transformative.
A child whose distress is repeatedly treated as unbearable may begin to experience their own emotions as dangerous.
An adult whose feelings are repeatedly dismissed may assume that emotional need will drive people away.
By contrast, another person who can stay curious in the presence of distress communicates an important expectation:
Something meaningful is happening here, and perhaps we can understand it.
This is very different from simply expecting someone to “do well.”
It is an expectation about their capacity to develop, think and change.
Being Recognised Is Not the Same as Being Defined
We all need recognition.
Being seen accurately by another person can be deeply affirming.
The difficulty arises when recognition hardens into definition.
There is an important difference between:
“I can see that you often take responsibility.”
and:
“You are the responsible one.”
Between:
“You seem frightened today.”
and:
“You are an anxious person.”
Between:
“You have achieved something impressive.”
and:
“You are only valuable when you succeed.”
Healthy recognition leaves room for movement.
Definition closes possibilities down.
We may need other people to help us know ourselves, but psychological development also involves discovering that no other person completely defines who we are.
Psychotherapy and the Expectations We Have Inherited
Psychotherapy provides an opportunity to become curious about the expectations that organise our lives.
Some questions may gradually emerge:
Whose voice do I hear when I feel I have failed?
Who taught me that I must always be competent?
When did I begin expecting other people to lose interest?
Why does needing somebody feel dangerous?
Why do I assume disagreement means rejection?
Which parts of my identity feel chosen, and which feel compulsory?
Therapy does not aim simply to replace negative expectations with positive ones.
That can become another demand:
You should believe in yourself.
You should be more confident.
You should think positively.
The deeper aim is greater psychological freedom.
It is the possibility of recognising an old expectation without automatically organising your life around it.
You may discover:
I expect people to leave, but this person has not left.
Or:
I learned to be the strong one, but perhaps I can sometimes be supported.
Or:
My family imagined a particular future for me, but I am allowed to discover what I want.
The question Whose expectations am I living inside? can therefore become less accusatory and more exploratory.
Not every inherited expectation needs to be rejected.
Some may express values we genuinely wish to keep.
Others may have helped us survive or belong.
The task is to recognise them clearly enough that we can begin to choose.
Becoming Less Predictable
Psychological freedom often involves becoming slightly less predictable.
The responsible person experiments with saying no.
The successful person allows themselves to attempt something they may not master.
The emotionally self-sufficient person asks for help.
The person who expects abandonment waits before assuming that distance means rejection.
The partner who expects criticism risks saying what they actually feel.
These may appear to be small changes.
Clinically, however, they can represent important shifts.
Something that once felt psychologically inevitable becomes one possibility among several.
We begin to move from:
“This is simply who I am.”
towards:
“This is a way I learned to be.”
And from there, perhaps:
“I wonder who else I might become.”
Whose Expectations Am I Living Inside?
The companion interactive worksheet, Whose Expectations Am I Living Inside?, has been designed to help you continue this reflection privately and at your own pace.
It will invite you to explore:
- expectations you may have absorbed from parents, teachers, partners or other important people;
- roles or identities you learned to occupy;
- expectations you now carry about yourself;
- assumptions you bring into close relationships;
- situations in which you may unconsciously expect another person to confirm an older story;
- positive expectations that have gradually become burdens;
- areas of your life in which you might like to become a little less predictable.
The purpose is not to decide that other people were simply wrong about you.
Nor is it to replace one fixed identity with another.
The invitation is to become more curious about the psychological stories you have inherited, the ones you still need, and the ones you may now be ready to loosen.
Request the Interactive Worksheet
If this clinical reflection has raised questions for you, the interactive worksheet Whose Expectations Am I Living Inside? offers a private, structured space in which to explore them further.
You can request the worksheet through the feedback/request form below by providing your name and email address. You are also welcome to leave an optional comment about what interested you in this reflection or any area you are finding particularly difficult.
Once your request is received, a link to the worksheet will be sent to you by email.
The worksheet is not a substitute for psychotherapy, but it can support structured reflection and may complement therapeutic work by helping you notice patterns, expectations and relational assumptions that you may wish to explore further.
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If you would like to use Whose Expectations Am I Living Inside?, please request the worksheet directly from Ari through the chat space inside your BetterHelp therapy account. The worksheet can then be shared with you within the boundaries of your BetterHelp therapeutic work.
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The aim of these resources is not to provide simple answers, but to create opportunities for curiosity: about the ways we relate to ourselves, the expectations we carry into relationships, and the possibility of becoming less constrained by stories that once seemed inevitable.
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