Loading summary
Transcript131 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:05]
B
Have you ever felt so overwhelmed by your mental health concerns that it's hard to even contemplate getting help? Let's be honest, when you're really struggling, finding help and getting yourself to a therapy session can be really difficult. But that's where virtual therapy offerings like ours really make a difference. As a licensed clinical psychologist with 25 years of OCD treatment, I've worked with people to help them get their life back on track. I've also trained a clinical team to do the same here at nocd. NOCD is an online platform offering specialized, accessible and convenient OCD treatment. Our therapists take insurance and will work with you every step of the way to help you get your life back from obsessive compulsive disorder. So head to nocd.com to book a call to start your treatment journey. And don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you can stay up to date on our latest podcasts and webinars. Now, onto today's episode. Hello everyone, and welcome once again to another episode of the get to Know OCD Podcast. This is brought to you by nocd. If you like the podcast, you can subscribe to the NOCD YouTube channel and get the podcast there or anywhere where you get your favorite podcasts. And if you're looking for help for OCD or related conditions, check us out@nocd.com that's n o c d.com today my guest is, well, someone I've known for quite a while, Taylor Newendorp. We have worked together for a long time prior to even nocd, and it is good to have you here today. Taylor does a lot of work with us at NOCD in terms of training our therapists, and that's great stuff. But you've also got a book out and that's what we really want to talk about today is perfectionism.
- [01:49]
A
So.
- [01:50]
B
So, Taylor, tell everybody a little bit about you.
- [01:53]
A
Yeah, happy to be here. I've known you for a very, very long time at this point, Patrick, so this is pretty cool to be meeting and chatting like this, but I've been practicing as a clinician for over 20 years now and in large part thanks to you and working with you in an OCD program almost 15 years ago. For the last 15 years, my primary specialty has been helping people with OCD and anxiety disorders, primarily using exposure and response prevention and other various CBT techniques. And I always tell people I stick with this work because it's really rewarding, it's really fulfilling. ERP is so incredibly effective. With OCD and anxiety disorders and even perfectionism, which we're about to talk about, it's really fulfilling work as a clinician to see people make meaningful gains in treatment and really learn how to successfully overcome the symptoms that at one point were really distressing and really debilitating to them.
- [03:01]
B
And tell everyone a little bit more about your role here at NOCD with our training program and what we do.
- [03:08]
A
Yeah. So you have seen NOCD grow tremendously over the years. I was one of the very first therapists that started here over six years ago, and over the years have been fortunate enough to be in a position where I train the bulk of the new clinicians that join us here at nocd. So I'm the director of clinical training, oversee everything related to the initial training and onboarding processes that our new clinicians go through. It's a little bit of a boot camp, taking therapists who may not have much experience with OCD and ERP and trying to teach them everything they need to know to administer ERP in a really effective way to help people out with OCD from the first moment they go live in our network and start seeing their first few members.
- [03:55]
B
Yeah. Such an important role. So thank you for doing that. And I know our new therapists are always appreciative, but. But today we really wanted to focus on perfectionism and dive into that. So you have a book out. Tell us, what's the name of the book and where can people get it?
- [04:12]
A
Yeah, it's the Perfectionism Workbook. It's a pretty straightforward title.
- [04:18]
B
I wonder what it's about. I have no idea.
- [04:22]
A
The easiest, cheapest way to find it is on Amazon. Honestly, you just go on Amazon, put in the Perfectionism Workbook. If you see my long last name, Neuendorp. On. On it. That's the one.
- [04:34]
B
That's the one. All right. And why a book on perfectionism? What motivated that? And why that subspecialty or that. That, you know, chunk of ocd? What was interesting to you about perfectionism?
- [04:49]
A
Yeah, a few things. So I'm pretty honest about the fact that I have lived with my own perfectionistic tendencies over my life. At one point, really during undergrad, my college years, it was problematic for me, but I wasn't really able to identify what it was, and I totally lucked out. I actually got a college counselor who was familiar with perfectionism and helped me understand that was what was driving a lot of my stress and some of my depression that I was experiencing at the time. So I kind of knew it was a thing from my own personal experience. Then once I got into the field first I worked a lot with substance use and addiction and shortly after that started really working very closely with people struggling with eating disorders and with those populations. I just heard people describing more and more perfectionistic beliefs, perfectionistic tendencies and behaviors that were really, really disruptive to their day to day lives. Then as, you know, kind of making the transition to focusing on OCD and anxiety disorders, then it was just like in my face all the time. Everybody I was working with, OCD or various anxiety disorders, like social anxiety disorder, gad, those types of things really again, clearly holding onto a lot of perfectionistic belief systems that were ultimately detrimental to their quality of life.
- [06:28]
B
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And definitely we saw that in our IOP php, so our intensive outpatient and partial hospital programs that we ran back at Alexi and Brothers and with all anxiety disorders and even in our school anxiety, school refusal program and for sure in the eating disorder program that, that people would have a lot of those tendencies.
- [06:52]
How do you describe or define perfectionism to people now when you're working with them and trying to introduce them to the concepts of how it might be something that's getting in the way instead of being helpful? Because as we know, OCD will always say if you do this, everything will be better, but just really. Yeah, not so much.
- [07:15]
A
Yeah, yeah. So I always like to break things down into kind of basic definitions to just kind of help everyone involved understand what's going on. So if we look at almost like the dictionary definition of the word perfect, basically what that means is, you know, entirely without flaw or defect. And then when we talk about perfection like a state of perfection, that's the state of existing without any flaws or defects. And on top of that, perfectionism is this tendency to set really unrealistic, often unattainable standards in the hope of achieving a state of perfection, a state of flawlessness. So looking at it that way, people are literally striving to achieve what I firmly believe is impossible.
- [08:14]
B
Right.
- [08:15]
A
Because who do you know that is entirely without flaw or defect? I mean, I know you'll probably say you, but I mean, apart from that.
- [08:22]
B
I was thinking that myself. Yes.
- [08:26]
But. Oh, not true. Many a flaw. Many. Yes.
- [08:34]
And yeah, I mean, that is the basic question, right? Have I personally, in doing OCD work now, 26 years, have never once met anyone who agreed on something being perfect that everybody else in the world did? Because if something were truly perfect, to me, the definition would also say all 9 billion people on the planet would look at it and go, oh, yeah, well, I mean, there you go. But we have nothing that meets that definition.
- [09:04]
A
Nothing. Yeah, that. That's an excellent point. Right. And. And this is one of so many problems with perfectionism is that it's completely subjective. Right. Your idea of, like, maybe the. The perfect meal is going to be different from mine. Your idea of, like, the perfect song is going to be different than mine. Right. So you're right. You're not going to get, you know, a whole worldwide consensus of one single thing that everybody can agree on is completely flawless. Yeah.
- [09:37]
B
How frustrating is that for people when they start to recognize that this thing they've been trying to attempt to achieve is unattainable?
- [09:50]
A
Well, that's an excellent question. I think it probably depends on the person. I would say the frustration comes out of constantly trying to achieve something that is essentially impossible. When people learn that what they've been striving for all along is unattainable, sometimes that actually leads to a little feeling of relief because they start to see they've been so caught up in this one perspective or this one way of viewing things that they kind of lost sight of the fact that, oh, maybe what I was shooting for all along was never realistic to begin.
- [10:30]
B
You've likely heard this working in the OCD field. I know I have. Is, you know, wouldn't a little OCD be helpful? So how many peoples have you kind of wanted to argue with or just kind of educate on this idea that isn't a little bit of perfectionism helpful and help us get through things? I mean, how do you. How do you have that conversation with people?
- [10:56]
A
Yeah, that's. That's hard because I would say on a surface level, for people that maybe haven't lived with it or really understand OCD and perfectionism, it can appear as though there could be benefits to living your life that way. Right. So, you know, why not always strive for the best? Well, the problem is you're not really striving for the best. You're. You're striving for, once again, something that's completely unrealistic, unattainable, that no one in the world could ever achieve. So that's not really high expectations. It's more like unrealistic expectations and standards.
- [11:40]
B
Maybe the hallmark of OCD is having unattainable, unrealistic expectations and standards. And the lie told by OCD is that as long as you get it perfect, then OCD will go away because you won't. You won't really need OCD anymore. Unless you need OCD to keep it perfect once it's been perfect. But. But that, again, might go against the definition of perfect, because can something that's perfect ever become not per. You know, we could probably philosophize about that for the next hour if that was the case. Right.
- [12:15]
So all the compulsions that people do, all of the attempts, and I think we should even add in here, though it's a different treatment. Even Obsessive compulsive personality disorder, which has a hallmark of it's my way or the highway, My way is the only way for it to be done. And that absolute perfectionism that occurs in that situation, you know, interfering not only in someone's life of being able to get things done, but in the lives of everyone they're potentially interacting with because of the just utter butting of heads that could occur there. Perfectionism can be actually a huge problem.
- [12:56]
A
Yeah, it really can be. And again, I understand how, you know, maybe it kind of has some positive connotations that go along with it, but ultimately where it crosses a line and becomes problematic is, you know, this ongoing attempt to achieve any feeling of perfection. Anything that feels absolutely perfect, just right. That never ending attempt to get there usually breeds a lot of stress, anxiety, flat out distress, anger. We often see with perfectionism. With or without ocd, people are really, really critical of themselves, really hard on themselves. So it can even contribute to, you know, depression, a really poor sense of self worth. All of those things obviously can cause a lot of interference in the type of life that the person would actually prefer to be living.
- [13:58]
B
Yeah. And the frustration of maybe not just them, but even other people. I mean, we've seen OCD can get frustrated that other people don't do the things that you think are perfect. Like why did you put the dishwasher that way when it's supposed to be this way? Or the forks are not all lined up the way that I like them, or the cabinet or something of that nature. So it can not only affect the person, it could really have a effect on the system, right?
- [14:28]
A
Oh, definitely. Definitely for the reasons you just mentioned. Also for people that are around the perfectionist. Right. A lot of frustration, a lot of not understanding, really hard to understand. Maybe objectively it looks like this person's doing great. They're the straight A student, they're the top athlete, the top performer, whatever it may be. So then people around them who know them and love them and care about them, trying to give positive feedback. And no matter what it's still not enough for the person. They can hear the person openly expressing their own discontentment, their own criticism of themselves. And as a loved one, as a support person, that's hard to hear. So even that can be difficult. And as you kind of mentioned, with something like O C D, certainly with something like obsessive compulsive personality disorder, it could be that the person living with those perfectionistic tendencies is making unrealistic demands of others and that is, you know, kind of spills out onto other people that are trying to care for them and support them. So that can create a lot of tension and a lot of misunderstanding.
- [15:48]
B
It really has to be difficult for people to feel like they can't ever win something, right?
- [15:54]
A
Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. And you know, as we know with ocd, right, the trap of OCD as you mentioned, is, all right, just do this one compulsion one more time and then it's going to be okay. But it's, it's never enough for the ocd and it's, it's, it's a very similar cycle entrapped with perfectionism. Right. Okay. I didn't get a perfect that time. Let me try just one more time. Right. And it really becomes that, that never ending cycle.
- [16:32]
B
This.
- [16:36]
Belief. Where do you think.
- [16:39]
A lot of it starts? I mean, have you in, in writing the book, I don't know if you had spent a lot of time really trying to figure out. You know, some people will say, well, my parents raised me to be this way or it was my childhood. Or do we know any kind of correlates of that? Or is it just some people are on that bell curve spectrum of not caring at all and other people are all the way out there on the, you know, what, what's some of the background on it?
- [17:11]
A
Yeah, I think it is similar to what we many times see with ocd. And again, just to be clear right there, there's a high comorbidity, I would say, with OCD and perfectionism, even though perfectionism itself isn't a diagnosis or anything, but you don't have to be living with OCD or an anxiety disorder to have perfectionistic tendencies.
- [17:35]
So kind of like with ocd, we don't always know where it came from. We don't always know all the different things that might have contributed to someone developing it. It's pretty similar with perfectionism because in research I've done and just in working with I don't know how many hundreds of people with these perfectionistic tendencies, it's kind of all over the place. There Are some people. There appears to be some sort of genetic predisposition to it. And when you learn a little bit about their family, there is a family history of things like anxiety, depression, ocd. It could even be something like substance use or abuse.
- [18:16]
B
Right.
- [18:17]
A
But not always. We know that there are definitely know familiar factors that can influence it, cultural factors that can influence it. People could be getting messages throughout their life from other people that are, are well intended, but they're kind of internalizing it and taking it the wrong way. So getting a lot of encouragement to like always do your best. Right. That kind of stuff. It can be well intended from a parent, from another family member, from a teacher, a coach, a boss, whatever it may be. But they hear this enough over time, they start to internalize this idea that, oh, I'm, I'm actually not doing well enough, I need to be doing better, I gotta be perfect.
- [19:10]
B
It can start so innocently too. I, I knew someone who a teacher wrote on an essay, this is the best essay I've ever read. And from that day forward, every essay he ever wrote for every teacher had to be the best essay, every teacher. So it was a totally innocent statement. And yet was the kickoff of this perfectionism.
- [19:30]
A
Yeah, that's a great example. Right. Because this is another thing we see happen. Oh, I've done the best. And that set the bar. Next time I'm going to set the bar for myself a little bit higher and a little bit higher and a little bit higher. But again, it never ends.
- [19:47]
B
There's no end. Tell us about the illusion of perfectionism that you talk about in the book.
- [19:53]
A
So I think the illusion of perfectionism is kind of what you and I have been discussing already. It's this idea that perfection is actually achievable.
- [20:03]
Because I would make the argument that truly it's not. Also, as we've kind of been discussing, let's think about an example of something like ocd. Maybe someone's going through a compulsive process to get a sense or a feeling that something is just right. And I'm sure you've heard this, I've heard this many times. I feel like I need to keep doing the thing or I need to keep thinking through something until it feels perfect, almost like there's a click. And when I get that feeling that is perfect, that it's just right, then I can move on. Right. But the trap, as we've already identified is at some point the doubt, the uncertainty, even the self criticism is going to come back and then the person just Goes right back to the same thing. Oh, okay. That felt perfect. And that lasted for a few moments. Now I need to try and achieve that again. So the whole illusion here is that the person is ever going to get to a state where they truly feel like everything is lined up perfectly forever. It's not going to happen.
- [21:15]
B
So there's. You talk about five tendencies then of toxic perfectionism. So walk us through what these things are so that our audience can kind of maybe get an understanding or. Or. Or be like, oh, maybe those are things I need to work on. They might not actually be helping me the way I think that they are. Right.
- [21:35]
A
Yeah. All right. You're really testing my memory. It's been a few years since I put the book out, but I think I know what they are. So one would be people pleasing. Okay. This is. And we haven't gotten into this too much, but there's just like there are all these different kind of subtypes of ocd. There are a bunch of different subtypes of perfectionism as well.
- [21:57]
B
Okay.
- [21:59]
A
One is referred to as socially prescribed perfectionism. So it's this idea that I need to live up to like society standards. I actually started to see this a ton with eating disorders.
- [22:13]
B
Sure.
- [22:13]
A
Oh my gosh, look at that model. Like, she's perfect. She's got the perfect body. I need to achieve that. That kind of stuff. Right. So what this often leads to is people starting to behave in a way that they assume others want them to. They start to put other people's perceived needs and wants above their own and it turns into people pleaser.
- [22:44]
B
Yeah.
- [22:44]
A
So I always need to present myself perfectly so I never run the risk of upsetting somebody else. I want to do. Don't want to do anything that would be off putting to anybody else that would ever be offensive. So I need to make sure I'm always carrying myself in a perfect manner. I certainly see that with eating disorders. Like I said, O C D. See that a lot with social anxiety disorder as well. So that's a big one. Just kind of that people pleasing. It's almost like this ongoing need, perceived need to always gain approval from others.
- [23:21]
What happens then is the person usually isn't being their true self.
- [23:26]
B
Sure.
- [23:26]
A
They're not actually doing what they'd like to do. They're not actually acting the way that would be natural or preferable to. Right. So that's problematic. That's also problematic because the person's entire sense of self worth is completely dependent on what others think of them. And that can really Kind of erode someone's self confidence.
- [23:50]
B
Yeah. One thing that I've noticed, I'd love your opinion on this. People with perfectionistic tendencies actually don't like compliments because I mean, on the one hand they do because it, it says somebody noticed what I did. But on the other hand, it now sets the bar of what I must achieve going forward. Because to go now under the compliment means that I'm not being perfect anymore.
- [24:16]
A
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And kind of to your point, with the example of like the comment on the essay, it's the same thing. And it could be a seemingly innocuous comment like, oh, you look really nice in that outfit. And the person's like, oh my gosh, next time I have to make sure I have the perfect outfit, of course, and I look even better, that kind of stuff.
- [24:40]
So that's people pleasing. I know I've been using the term self criticism a lot. That's definitely a toxic tendency with perfectionism. Just really excessive, unnecessarily, harsh, self critical criticism. And again, it's tied to this idea that no matter what the person has done, it's still not quite good enough.
- [25:02]
B
Okay.
- [25:03]
A
So then they start to kind of mentally beat the crap out of themselves or beating themselves up internally, telling themselves they need to do better, they should have done better, they should never make a mistake that'll actually kind of lead me into the next one, which is that people have this really intense fear of making mistakes, getting something wrong, because then that would indicate, guess what, I'm flawed. And if I'm perfect, then I have to be flawless. Right? So if I actually have flaws and then other people see that, that's this really kind of upsetting evidence that I have not achieved perfection yet. So people get really, really scared of making errors, getting stuff wrong, misspeaking, you know, even misspelling a word in an email or a text or whatever it may be. And that just leads to like lots of checking, lots of redoing things over and over and over.
- [26:04]
B
You almost have to deny your humanity to be perfectionistic.
- [26:07]
A
Right.
- [26:08]
B
I mean, you become some kind of higher power or something like that that wouldn't have a flaw. If your goal is perfectionism, your goal is godliness or however you may describe that kind of experience, Right. Because to be human is to make a mistake and to goof up and to learn and to adjust and to evaluate and all those things. But to never make a mistake would, would mean you're not a human.
- [26:37]
A
Yeah, yeah. And think about what we see so much with ocd Another way this can manifest is people might form this idea that they. That they should be perfect in thought. They should only experience pure, perfect thoughts. And then with ocd.
- [26:57]
Right, right, right. So impossible for anybody. We cannot control all the stuff that just happens to come into our brain throughout the course of the day. Right. But especially with ocd, then people are getting these really upsetting, intrusive, unwanted thoughts and images that are very far from pure, very far from perfect. That creates a lot of fear and distress and also leads back into that kind of negative self judgment. Oh, my gosh. What's wrong with me that this is happening? I shouldn't be having these kinds of thoughts, but they keep happening.
- [27:32]
B
Yeah.
- [27:32]
A
And that feels imperfect and wrong.
- [27:35]
B
Yeah.
- [27:37]
A
Yeah. Let me think. I want to make sure I hit on all the five tendencies, because you're really testing.
- [27:42]
B
I was hoping you'd only do four and then not be perfect in the five. That would have been more fun, but. Okay, go ahead.
- [27:48]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'll. I'll mess something up before we're done. It's gonna happen.
- [27:55]
But one that I kind of learned for myself is procrastination. And I never would have guessed this is actually a function of perfectionism. It can actually be a function of anxiety.
- [28:08]
B
Sure.
- [28:09]
A
So, right. We know with anxiety, ocd, we see all these safety behaviors, a lot of avoidance of anything that might cause discomfort. And procrastination to me is another form of avoidance. So the way this might manifest with perfectionism is that the person is actually so scared of the potential outcome, they're so scared they might not get it just right.
- [28:37]
B
Yeah.
- [28:37]
A
It might not be perfect or, you know, received perfectly by others. It feels easier and safer in a moment to just put it off, to not do it. So it could be some task or project they're putting off. It could just be making a decision about something because they're so scared about making the wrong decision and having that leading to something bad happening. Right. So just put it off. Put it off as long as they can. And it can get really bad to the point where the person's actually just kind of paralyzed.
- [29:09]
B
Yeah.
- [29:09]
A
All of a sudden they feel like, I can't do anything because I'm so afraid of the outcome.
- [29:13]
B
And we've seen people literally who just freeze. Like, you can't. Don't even move because they're so stuck in having to try to figure out how to do something perfectly that they won't even budge.
- [29:24]
A
Yeah. Literally stuck. And I'm thinking back to someone I worked with Years ago. And she was literally stuck, like you're describing. And when she kind of got herself through it and out of it later and was able to tell me what was going on in her mind, she had to think things through perfectly. She had to have the perfect line of thinking in her mind before she would allow herself to walk outside the door. Because in her mind, if it didn't all feel perfect as she walked outside the door, something terrible was gonna.
- [29:56]
B
I've also had my take on procrastination, which is if I leave it till the last minute and then I do it, then I just have to turn it in. But if I get it done early, all I'm going to do is review it and review it and critique it and do it again and everything. So it actually prevents me from dealing with all of that by waiting until the very last second doing it, and then it's. It's over, it's done.
- [30:20]
A
Yeah, yeah. I really appreciate that you brought that up because that's another reason someone might be putting it off. Because they already know the process of working on whatever it is they need to work on. We could use the example of school like a school paper, you know, the process of working on it is going to feel torturous to them.
- [30:38]
B
Absolutely.
- [30:38]
A
Because they will be stuck. Like you just said, I already know I'm going to feel the need to go over and revise it and edit it and change it and reread it over and over and over again. And that feels so miserable I don't even want to deal with it. So I'm going to put it off.
- [30:53]
B
One of the things that I've always said too, in my talks and trainings is practice does not make perfect. Right. And boy, there's people who don't like hearing that.
- [31:05]
I always say practice makes routine because.
- [31:10]
Routines change. I mean.
- [31:14]
You know, someone could become the best violin player or basketball player, but it doesn't mean they will always be that there will. Age will take over. Arthritis may set in something, some, and they will not be that. So you can make a great routine to be able to do something. But as a human, those routines at times will fail. I mean, hell, I could turn my computer on and once in a while it's just the blue screen of death. Right, right. And, and, and that's programmed into the computer to. When you hit this button, this thing happens. And every once in a while it doesn't happen, even though it's programmed in there for it to do it. So if my computer can't Even be perfect every time I do it. And it's got something just built into it. How is a human going to be perfect?
- [31:57]
A
Yeah, exactly. And one thing I've, I think is really funny. Like with the development of AI and ChatGPT, if you go on ChatGPT, one of the first things it says is, Chad, GPT can make mistakes. Yeah, right. Because it can, because everybody does. And I think with perfectionism, what people often overlook or they're not even considering or afraid to consider, is that you actually can learn a lot from getting stuff wrong. We tend to learn more from our mistakes and errors we've made versus everything we've gotten right in our times.
- [32:35]
B
Correct. Yeah. And the gift of. Of the mistake sometimes. Right. I mean, some of the greatest inventions have occurred out of mistakes. Not. Not because someone was trying this thing, because they goofed that thing up and they discovered something as they did, they're like, whoa, who knew that one? You know that. That's. Yeah, that's amazing.
- [32:55]
A
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [32:58]
B
So perfectionism overlaps, as we said, with ocd. And we talked a little bit about anxiety and we talked about eating disorders. I'm wondering about depression maybe, because I've also seen people who are so depressed that they do nothing, just maybe out of being stuck in depression, but sometimes also out of the idea that there's just so much to do, I can't figure out how to do it. I have to have the perfect plan to be able to do this, and I can't figure that out. How could you address that a little bit also?
- [33:31]
A
Yeah, I think it comes back to some of that paralysis we've been talking about. If people, like, really sit down and they're actively thinking through all the things they feel the need to have be perfect in their lives. Right. That can be overwhelming. It can be really daunting, quite frankly. It can feel like too much because it is. And it can just SAP motivation. So that can contribute to low mood. Right. Someone who typically is a high achiever, who also on some level knows they're procrastinating and putting things off, they'll probably start to feel bad about themselves. And again and again, it comes back to that really unnecessarily, excessively harsh self criticism. If you're telling yourself even getting a single thing wrong translates to you being a failure, you're making that kind of like really sweeping character judgment against yourself just because you got something wrong. Or guess what, you're not perfect. When you're judging yourself in a really negative, harsh way, labeling yourself As a failure as a bad person, that is also going to contribute to depression and just that ongoing low sense of self worth.
- [34:52]
B
So we've talked a lot about on those emotional sides of things, but are there physical warning signs of perfectionism or tolls that it will take on us physically in addition to mentally?
- [35:03]
A
Oh, certainly. They're really strong correlations between perfectionism and stress. And stress manifests in a number of different ways that can be noticeable, can turn into tension headaches. It could be ongoing muscle tension throughout the body. It could be things like difficulty asleep, difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep nightly because a person continues to think about what they need to do better, or they're reviewing all the things they perceive they've done wrong, and they're so worried about what others may think of them. And that kind of stuff. Um, another way it can manifest in what I would consider a physical symptom, which is actually behavioral, are some of the things we've touched on, Disordered eating behaviors. Those become really dangerous. Right. Substance abuse. That becomes really dangerous for people too. So a lot of times people have a hard time kind of identifying their own stress, but those are some things to keep out for ongoing tension, irritability, impatience, difficulty sleeping, feeling fatigued a lot of the time. Those could all actually be signs that there's some underlying perfectionism contributing to it.
- [36:21]
B
I want to switch gears a little and then and talk about the treatment of this and how do you set up for people you're working with, the treatment of this? How do you approach it, and what are your goals that you're trying to achieve for people when they're doing therapy for this?
- [36:38]
A
Yeah. So as I would with ocd, typically taking more of an ERP approach, using exposure and response prevention. The exposure in cases of perfectionism, you know, not too over complicated, but things that might feel really challenging to the person, like intentionally mess stuff up, intentionally get things wrong, and see how others react to you. The whole goal is to tolerate the discomfort that goes along with it and see if all your fears around making some sort of error come true or not. Right. More often than not, they don't. So you can kind of take that behavioral approach. I would say if it's perfectionism in the absence of ocd, which you will see. So it could be an anxiety disorder, it could be depression, and there's some perfectionism going on. It can be worthwhile to use some cognitive behavioral techniques, like looking at distorted thought processes, any kind of belief system that is actually perpetuating stress, and finding ways to kind of reframe or challenge those. And again, I would reserve that if there's perfectionism in the absence of ocd, because, as you and I know, with ocd, we're not actually trying to directly challenge obsessions. We're not trying to directly challenge intrusive thoughts, because that often becomes compulsive.
- [38:07]
B
The battle of wills there.
- [38:09]
A
Yes.
- [38:10]
B
OCD wins every time, too, unfortunately.
- [38:13]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But. But I'll say this. You know, when. When you have the person who has recognized that their perfectionistic beliefs and behaviors are actually causing way more harm than good in their lives, and they can find the motivation to actively make some changes, it can be pretty cool for them to see, hey, I don't have to get things perfect. I'm not going to. And guess what? I can still excel. I can still be excellent at different things I'm doing, whether it's academics, whether it's my job, whether it's some other kind of performance. Right. I don't always have to present myself in what I imagine to be a perfect way. And guess what? People still like me. People still want to hang out. I can still have meaningful relationships. So that that behavioral change and then seeing that people can still have very positive results without all the additional unnecessary stress, that's pretty cool to see in treatment.
- [39:13]
B
Is there any myth about perfectionism that you want to just debunk today for all of our listeners to.
- [39:25]
A
I think there are probably two, and it's kind of what we've been talking about, so hopefully these make sense. I want to debunk the myth that perfectionism is a good thing.
- [39:34]
B
Okay.
- [39:35]
A
It's. It's not a good thing. Right. People wouldn't get to the point where they're completely burnt out, completely unhappy with their lives if perfectionism was a good thing.
- [39:47]
B
Yeah.
- [39:48]
A
Right. And as we've talked about from the get go, kind of debunking this idea that perfection is attainable because it's. It's not. It comes back to what you and I said at the outset. It's subjective, right? So it. It's literally impossible to achieve.
- [40:07]
B
Can I add one too, on there, which I think is this idea that it's the strive for perfection that has led me to the results I have. I would say we also know people who aren't perfectionistic, who don't have ocd, who have also achieved those results. So perfectionism was not necessarily an addition needed to be able to achieve those results. And in fact, I would contend you might have achieved those results despite the perfectionism, not because of the perfectionism.
- [40:41]
A
Yeah, that's an excellent point. I'm glad you brought that one up because. Right. With perfectionism, and again, if we're just talking about how people might be able to recognize if this is something that's going on for them, we're often looking at the emotional experience someone is going through as they're working towards something. And if it's driven by that self criticism, that perceived need, like I have to be really hard on myself to push myself to the max all the time. And whatever they're working towards carries that distress and that never ending pressure along with it and still they get to the end result. And there's that sense I just aren't quite good enough. That sounds like perfectionism. Right. On the other side, like you just said, you could have someone that's not going through that same experience still have excellent results. So when we're striving for excellence and perfectionism is not at play, the whole process feels different. It's exciting. We're working towards something because it's really interesting, we're curious about it and we're really happy about the process because the process itself of working towards it is rewarding and fulfilling to us. So to me, that's always been a really helpful way for people to kind of discern. Is this actually an issue for me or not? Well, whatever it is you're working towards, for lack of a better phrase, how do you feel about it? Is it exciting and rewarding? Great. You're striving for excellence. If it feels miserable and torturous, I think perfectionism is kind of interfering with it.
- [42:21]
B
Before we go, one last thing. How do you help people accept that good enough is actually good enough and that it doesn't have to be perfect?
- [42:34]
A
I wish there was a way to just have that happen for people. Right. That's really hard to get to there. There is certain, a certain level of acceptance that people have to get to.
- [42:47]
I know I'm biased in this respect because I've been practicing ERP for so long, but I really think it's the behavioral change behaving in a different way than what the perfectionism and or the OCD is telling you to, and many times doing the exact opposite of what it's telling you to do just to see how it turns out. And when people are able to make that behavioral change, see, they can tolerate the uncertainty and any discomfort that goes along with it. And guess what? There were not these terrible, horrible, overly catastrophic results that then leads to acceptance. People start to see oh, okay. This is what it means to have things feel like they're good enough. I've gone about things very differently than I used to, and things seem to be turning out okay.
- [43:37]
B
Give us some parting words, Taylor. Some advice for everybody out there listening to this, who might be considering. Should I get help for this and. Or could I still just give it one more try to try to be perfect?
- [43:53]
A
That's the trap. That's the trap, right? It's never going to work. If that's the goal, just one more time, then it's all going to feel just right and perfect forever. It's not going to happen. I'll say this because for all the reasons we've talked about, it can be hard for people to recognize or sometimes fully admit this might be an issue for themselves. And there is kind of that lingering belief or desire that you just touched on, like, well, maybe next time I'll get that sense of perfection.
- [44:26]
I. This is something I. I ask people all the time. How will you actually know when you've achieved perfection? How are you going to know?
- [44:37]
Sometimes people get so caught up in this idea of things having to feel perfect and just right, they actually don't even know what that would look like or what that would feel.
- [44:48]
B
Interesting.
- [44:48]
A
So how would you know?
- [44:49]
B
Interesting.
- [44:50]
A
How would you even know?
- [44:51]
B
You would know. Perfectionism. Advent smacked you in the face, right? Yeah.
- [44:56]
A
Right. Right.
- [44:58]
B
Great. Well, Taylor, if people want to get the book again, tell them a little bit about it one more time where they can go.
- [45:06]
A
Yeah, it's the Perfectionism Workbook. It has a longer title after that that I'm blanking on right now because I told you I'm going to mess something up.
- [45:14]
B
Because you're not even perfect about your own book. That's why.
- [45:17]
A
Yeah, exactly. It's the Perfectionism Workbook by Taylor Newendorp and some blah, blah, blah on Amazon. Yeah.
- [45:27]
B
And it's on Amazon. All right, well, good. Well, Taylor, thank you for being here today. I really appreciate it.
- [45:33]
A
Yeah, my pleasure. Good to see you, Patrick.
- [45:35]
B
And thank all of you for watching another episode of the get to Know OCD podcast. If you liked it, you can subscribe at the NOCD YouTube channel or get it wherever you get your favorite podcasts. If you're looking for help for OCD or related conditions, we work with things like hoarding and body focused repetitive behaviors and tics and trauma, depression. Check us out@nocd.com that's nice. Nocd.com and remember, treat yourself better than your OCD ever does. You're worth it. Thanks for watching. We'll see you again next time.
- [46:22]
A
Sa.