Perfectionists often use people-pleasing and perfectionism to manage their distress around external shame, yet they do so at a great cost.

A Personal Perspective: Perfectionism plagued me for most of my life, but a memorable relationship with my therapist helped me learn how to quiet my inner critic.

Perfectionism is an unhealthy way of addressing shame, implying the belief that, with enough effort, shame will someday cease.

D.W. Winnicott noted that being a "good enough" parent was better than being a good one. Here's why trying too hard may backfire.

Perfectionism is an unhealthy way of addressing shame, implying the belief that, with enough effort, shame will someday cease.

Maladaptive daydreaming is a chronic and automatic retreat into one's fantasies when upset or bored. This pattern of being has the potential to completely upend one's life.

YouTube video by Seize the Moment Podcast

Despite popular belief, patients resist change not only because they fear it, but also because they wish to remain authentic.

Perfectionism often involves a preoccupation with cultivating emotional security while trying to comprehend and make up for childhood trauma.

Perfectionism is a coping mechanism for the fear of uncertainty, existential emptiness, the prospect of regret, and a sense of insignificance, and it has long-term costs.

Some women believe significant others, especially the men in their lives, demand perfection of them and struggle to feel good about themselves without their approval.

Partners of perfectionists struggle with proving how much they love them. This post addresses how to manage feeling helpless when the proof provided isn't enough.

Moral perfectionism, the excessive preoccupation with being perceived as good, is often a significant barrier to meaningful change, causing denial and defensiveness.

Gifted children may be pressured by their parents to be great, yet they don't know that, for those parents, satisfaction may never be attainable.

One of the more difficult aspects of being a therapist is watching a patient repeatedly harm themself without being able to persuade them to choose better. We don’t give advice, so we rely on our i…

Moral perfectionism is associated with excessive pride, which often blinds us from others' needs while making us falsely believe that we're good and thoughtful people.

Perfectionists struggle to define what makes one lovable and worthy, so they search for external validation while also unfairly discounting it.

Perfectionists may attempt to embody an absolute and consistent goodness, yet morality often requires us to treat others differently, which can feel confusing and scary.

While rejection sensitivity may be strengthened by bad environments, good ones can help us learn to cope with rejection and build our self-esteem.

When love is believed to be conditional, based on some form of performance, we may contribute to our mental health struggles in the constant pursuit of that conditional love.

Obsession can resemble love through a process called limerence, which is more about the obsessive proving their lovability than cultivating love.

Personal Perspective: Perfectionists struggle with heartbreak because they struggle to make sense of how someone who said they loved them could have just stopped and left.

Perfectionists tend to catastrophize, personalize, disqualify their achievements, and have excessive standards. This guide helps them address those thinking habits.

Perfectionists tend to obsessively pursue their goals with the false hope that their achievements will extinguish their shame and fears.

One of the more difficult aspects of being a therapist is watching a patient repeatedly harm themself without being able to persuade them to choose better. We don’t give advice, so we rely on our i…

Perfectionism and the pursuit of more success, while apparently rational, are driven, in part, by an intense fear of one's emotions.

One of the more difficult aspects of being a therapist is watching a patient repeatedly harm themself without being able to persuade them to choose better. We don’t give advice, so we rely on our i…

One of the more difficult aspects of being a therapist is watching a patient repeatedly harm themself without being able to persuade them to choose better. We don’t give advice, so we rely on our i…

Personalizing, or believing that negative events that happen to you are your fault, leads to deep sadness and shame, even if it provides a sense of hope temporarily.

Some fear being held responsible because they fear being blamed and shamed. But responsibility, unlike blame or shame, is fair, just, compassionate, and unifying.

Personal Perspective: Whether to diagnose is a controversial topic. It masks three problems: people wishing to avoid criticism, therapist collusion, and therapists who shame.

We find it hard to forgive ourselves, in part, because we believe doing so is counter-productive. Yet, shame, when coupled with forgiveness, makes us better people.

When others feel sympathy for us, we sometimes consider it pity and reject it. Yet, sympathy can help alleviate our shame and help us feel important.

We may fear confidence because we believe it makes us complacent and causes others to dislike us. So, increasing it takes more than just assessing our traits and achievements.

Bipolar II disorder prevents me from experiencing joy a lot of the time, and when I do, it's because I'm hoping for something better.

Therapists don't provide advice but use treatment to help their patients address their inability to accept advice from their loved ones and peers.

We often falsely believe that the more important we are, the less anxious we feel about our competence and security.

Personal Perspective: Concepts like treatment resistance and projective identification are often employed to absolve therapists of responsibility for the failure of treatment.

While limerence may seem like love, its qualities differ in meaningful ways, which, when discovered, help address it.

Autistic individuals often struggle with accepting rejection, instead trying harder to get others to appreciate them for their uniqueness.

Reynolds Woodcock is a master designer, who submerges himself in his work to avoid his deep fear of feeling anything, exhibiting all of the traits of perfectionism.

The push/pull dynamic is a label for relationships where one demands more time and attention while the other remains hyper-independent. There's often much more under the surface.

A new documentary highlights the dangers of fixating on self-esteem and social ranking, revealing the contradictions, delusions, and emotional struggles inherent in their pursuit.

YouTube video by Seize the Moment Podcast

Unhealthy perfectionism's preoccupation with infinitely increasing status and security misses the ingredient that makes perfecting a worthy pursuit: love.

Crippling self-doubt can lead to a chronic need for reassurance, but there's a better way to seek assistance.

The film "The Invite" highlights the personal and relational dangers of rejecting and suppressing our needs.

Nihilism teaches us that meaning can't be learned, so that it can, therefore, be anything to anyone, yet this philosophy is both harmful and wrong, often contributing to addictions.

Perfectionism often manifests in borderline personality disorder due, in part, to the tendency to anxiously search for clarity, security, and self-esteem.