Two different women, both of them up to their eyes in different sorts of trouble, last week put forward the same excuse to explain lapses in their behaviour. Each said she was suffering from a new debilitating condition – a compulsion to please people.

Danielle Chiesi, the hedge fund analyst who has admitted to passing on inside information to Raj Rajaratnam and others, got her lawyers to tell the court she was “motivated by an unhealthy and abnormal desire to please”. Her doctor said she had borderline personality disorder, on the strength of which the judge is being asked to limit the time she spends in jail.

A couple of days earlier, Sarah Ferguson offered a similar excuse when baring her soul to Oprah Winfrey. The reason she fell for a sting by a News of the World journalist, who offered ￡500,000 in return for an introduction to her ex, Prince Andrew, was that “my people-pleasing addiction kept me going on”.