Someone says yes and means no. This happens constantly — in meetings, in therapy groups, at the kitchen table. I call it kowtowing. And I am learning more and more to name it.

What Kowtowing Is

Kowtowing is not listening. Not thinking. Not holding back. Kowtowing is agreement without conviction — performative, automatic, conflict-averse. The mouth says yes, the body says something else.

In addiction therapy you encounter it constantly. I learned it as a client — in myself and in conversations with other clients. Someone sits in the group, nods, says: “Yes, that’s right.” Sounds like insight. Is adaptation. And from that moment on, everyone is working with false data.

In psychiatry the same thing. Whoever tells the other what they want to hear remains invisible. Works short-term. Long-term, nothing changes. Kim Scott calls this phenomenon “Ruinous Empathy”: we stay silent out of misplaced consideration because we do not want to hurt anyone. But that very silence prevents real growth.

The Boundary: Silence Is Not Kowtowing

Before we learn to name it, we must distinguish: kowtowing is active avoidance, not passive thinking.

Here lies the greatest risk: the accusation. “You are just kowtowing right now!” can be misused as a rhetorical weapon to corner someone or force an answer that the other person still needs time for.

  • Real kowtowing is a reflexive, performative “yes” to force harmony.
  • Reflection is the silence in which one’s own opinion is first being formed.

Naming it requires sensitivity. Questions rather than assertions: “Do you really mean that?” rather than “You’re just saying yes.” It is an invitation to authenticity, not an accusation.

Why I Can Name It

Because I have experience — on both sides.

I have kowtowed myself. For years. Just always saying yes nicely. At some point you no longer even notice what your own opinion is. You function, you adapt, you lose yourself.

And I am getting better at recognising it in others. Not through a book, but through conversations — as a client in addiction therapy, as a peer, in exchange with other clients in psychiatry. At some point you hear the difference between a real yes and a performative one. The tone does not match, the posture does not fit, the answer comes too quickly. That takes practice. And it takes the courage to actually ask a follow-up question.

Examples: Breaking the Kowtow in Everyday Life

Naming kowtowing is not an end in itself. It is the permission for truth to matter more than hierarchy or courtesy.

  • The junior/newcomer: In the working world, newcomers often learn that saying yes is safe. We taught a junior to abandon the kowtow by explicitly guaranteeing him equal footing. I told him about my own mistakes and specifically invited him to formulate a correction when needed. Only through this “duty to contradict” and the experience that mistakes could be named did the performative agreement dissolve — and his real potential became visible.
  • The friend: In private relationships, kowtowing is often a protective mechanism out of fear of rejection. Here it helped to state the “equal footing” explicitly: “I need your real no, so I can rely on your yes.” The naming was an offer that our connection is stable enough for the truth.
  • The doctor: In the medical context, the hierarchy is often rigid. But even here, breaking the kowtow is vital. When I as a patient or peer express my doubts and the doctor understands these not as an attack but as valuable information, a space emerges in which we learn from each other.

For Both Sides

When kowtowing is named, two things happen simultaneously.

For the one who is kowtowing: someone really sees them. Not the façade, not the performative yes. The real person behind it. And they experience — perhaps for the first time — that contradiction does not lead to the end of contact. For people with attachment issues, this is enormous.

For the one who names it: they receive honest information instead of apparent harmony. In peer work this means: you are working with the real problem. In relationships: less built-up resentment that eventually explodes. And it models a conversational culture in which disagreement is allowed.

A closing thought on community guidelines:

Many standard codes of conduct (such as the Contributor Covenant) prioritise the “how” of communication — courtesy — so strongly over the “what” — truth — that a climate of kowtowing can emerge as a side effect. They protect against aggression, but they do not protect against the paralysis of apparent harmony. True inclusivity also means securing the space for an honest “no.”

By René Jochum and Claude (Anthropic). License: CC-BY-4.0.