Leon’s Existential Cafe

Are You Terrified of Feeling Confident? 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.

While the reframes of CBT, from evidence exploration, are often effective (i.e., the patient feels better due to newly formed beliefs), there remains a sense of ambivalence, with the underlying question being: “Is this safe?” We turn to psychoanalysis. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Your Obsessive Pursuits Won't Heal Your Shame Perfectionists tend to obsessively pursue their goals with the false hope that their achievements will extinguish their shame and fears.

Despite providing an exceptional amount of hope, obsessiveness tends to be a dead-end, even if one achieves everything they wanted to. Kierkegaard encapsulated this truth when he wrote, “Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.” www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Are You Terrified of Feeling Confident? 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.

In the psychoanalytic literature, ambivalence refers to the conflicting feelings we have. Since this tends to cause tension and confusion, as we prefer clarity and certainty, often, one part is conscious and the other is hidden, denied or suppressed. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Article: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Article: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Are You Terrified of Feeling Confident? 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.

Perfectionists, especially moral perfectionists, view the world through the framework of rewards and punishments, believing that others are closely assessing each of their deeds, why confidence feels threatening. “Will I be punished for standing out?” www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Are You Terrified of Feeling Confident? 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.

Our perfectionistic patients, in their quest for the sublime, don’t allow themselves to feel content or confident, because doing so is ominous. They tend to engage in a strategy labeled "defensive pessimism," whereby they predict the worst outcomes. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Are You Terrified of Feeling Confident? 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.

In elucidating the existential truths we have to address, Yalom notes the underlying groundlessness of life, the lack of objective meaning. He argues we have to make peace with the fact that there is no “right way” to live, implying morality isn’t central. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Are You Terrified of Feeling Confident? 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.

In the psychoanalytic literature, ambivalence refers to the conflicting feelings we have toward a person, object, or experience. We may both love and hate something. Since this state tends to cause tension, one part is often conscious and the other hidden. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Are You Terrified of Feeling Confident? 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.

Existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom was known to ask his patients, “What is the emotional payoff of thinking this way?” Implied was the reality of one believing what they wanted to, at least in the moment, even if they weren’t aware of doing so. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Are You Terrified of Feeling Confident? 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.

Resistance to change is, in essence, a commitment to the irrational. A patient may claim to need more evidence for a new belief despite their insistence on unfairly privileging their usual perspectives, without the awareness of doing so, of course. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Are You Terrified of Feeling Confident? 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.

Freud wrote, "Even as love and hate for the same person dwells in our bosom at the same time, so all life combines with the desire to maintain itself, an ambivalent desire for its own annihilation.” This insight explains why we act against our interests. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Are You Terrified of Feeling Confident? 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.

In psychoanalysis, ambivalence refers to the conflicting feelings we have toward a person, object, or experience. Since this state causes tension and confusion, as we prefer clarity and certainty, one part is often conscious, and the other is hidden. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Attempting to Be a Good Person May Prevent Meaningful Change Moral perfectionism, the excessive preoccupation with being perceived as good, is often a significant barrier to meaningful change, causing denial and defensiveness.

Ambivalence, as psychoanalyst Nancy McWilliams remarked, is ubiquitous, rather than in itself an indicator of mental illness. It’s the state of holding conflicting desires, intentions, or beliefs, with one side conscious and the other hidden from oneself. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Your Obsessive Pursuits Won't Heal Your Shame Perfectionists tend to obsessively pursue their goals with the false hope that their achievements will extinguish their shame and fears.

Despite providing an exceptional amount of hope, obsessiveness tends to be a dead-end, even if one achieves everything they wanted to. Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard noted this, writing, “Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.” www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Perfectionism Has No End to It Perfectionists struggle to define what makes one lovable and worthy, so they search for external validation while also unfairly discounting it.

Nancy McWilliams noted, “The obsessive-compulsiveuses words to conceal feelings, not to express them." To add: as long as we’re perfecting, an extreme form of doing, we’re avoiding feeling. Our words and actions collaborate to suffocate our emotions. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

The Perfectionist's Quest for Immature Love Socially prescribed perfectionists often equate love with being perfect, failing to acknowledge how their obsession with perfection is chasing the immature form of it.

Maturity is the ability to tolerate one’s own hypocrisy. Perfectionists often raise the question of Who am I really? Yet, the answer they often want and expect is something along the lines of You’re a good person. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Article: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Am I Loved Only Because I Perform? 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.

Parents may become overly dependent on that child to make them happy. Rather than just being happy about being in the presence of their happy child, some parents demand that others live up to their extremely high standards in order to satisfy them. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Your Obsessive Pursuits Won't Heal Your Shame Perfectionists tend to obsessively pursue their goals with the false hope that their achievements will extinguish their shame and fears.

Learning to tolerate shame may feel like a contradiction, as we often implore patients to deal with their problems head-on. But shame and existential dread are often best addressed by immersing oneself in one’s life and thinking about its meaning less. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Your Obsessive Pursuits Won't Heal Your Shame Perfectionists tend to obsessively pursue their goals with the false hope that their achievements will extinguish their shame and fears.

The obsessive pursuit of affection hides shame, feeling unloved. The one pursued is then thrust into the role of a levee, a bland object meant to protect the perfectionist from a rising tide. Irvin Yalom famously asked a patient, “What are people for?” www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Your Obsessive Pursuits Won't Heal Your Shame Perfectionists tend to obsessively pursue their goals with the false hope that their achievements will extinguish their shame and fears.

Despite providing an exceptional amount of hope, obsessiveness tends to be a dead-end, even if one achieves everything desired. Søren Kierkegaard encapsulated this truth when he wrote, “Life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.” www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Perfectionism Is a Poor Defense for Emotional Vulnerability Perfectionism, at bottom, is a defense against one's sense of emotional vulnerability, which, counterintuitively, often aids in one's development, relationships, and health.

Perfectionists struggle with difficult conversations, employing various tactics to avoid them. So, if a partner is attempting to open up to them, sharing their own insecurities or hardships, the perfectionist may blame the partner for not doing enough. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Your Obsessive Pursuits Won't Heal Your Shame Perfectionists tend to obsessively pursue their goals with the false hope that their achievements will extinguish their shame and fears.

Perfectionists devalue what they have as one achievement can’t imply anything meaningful about who one generally is (unless it can somehow effectively remind you that you’re special) and because the process of achievement in itself is hardly ever full of joy. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

On episode 245, we welcome Michael Uebel to discuss the practice of equanimity, how perspective taking helps mitigate difficult feelings in PTSD, bridging political divides, and psychoanalysis as a foundation for increased humility and curiosity.

Full ep: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoF-...

Your Obsessive Pursuits Won't Heal Your Shame Perfectionists tend to obsessively pursue their goals with the false hope that their achievements will extinguish their shame and fears.

Since many obsessive-compulsive types are preoccupied with their image, rejection generally feels devastating. So, that they may not have even liked the individual rejecting them feels irrelevant. Here, the obsessive pursuit of affection hides one’s shame. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Article: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Your Obsessive Pursuits Won't Heal Your Shame Perfectionists tend to obsessively pursue their goals with the false hope that their achievements will extinguish their shame and fears.

Yalom asked a patient, “What are people for?” But we can broaden his question to ask, “What makes something, a relationship or a personal goal, worth pursuing?” Is its purpose merely to sustain a sense of emotional security or to make you like yourself? www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Your Obsessive Pursuits Won't Heal Your Shame Perfectionists tend to obsessively pursue their goals with the false hope that their achievements will extinguish their shame and fears.

The obsessive pursuit of affection hides one’s shame, feeling unwanted and unloved. The individual pursued is then thrust into the role of a levee, a bland object meant to protect the perfectionist from a rising tide. Yalom asked, “What are people for? www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...

Your Obsessive Pursuits Won't Heal Your Shame Perfectionists tend to obsessively pursue their goals with the false hope that their achievements will extinguish their shame and fears.

At bottom, obsessiveness is a paradox, a mixture of both hyper-independence and codependence—the perfectionist singularly chases a life wherein they’re taken care of, one full of material and philosophical provision. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/perf...