Therapy for Perfectionism in Austin, TX

For high-achieving professionals stuck in overwork, self-criticism, and the pressure to get it right.

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From the outside, you’re doing beautifully.

You’re the one people count on. You meet the deadline, remember the birthday, catch the thing everyone else missed. Your work is good — often better than good — and you’ve built a life that looks, by any reasonable measure, like it’s going well.

Inside, it’s a different story. You replay conversations hours after they’ve ended. You rewrite the email three times. You notice the one piece of feedback that wasn’t glowing and carry it around for a week. Rest is something you have to earn, and you’re not convinced you’ve earned it yet.

You’ve probably been praised for this your whole life. That’s part of what makes it so hard to put down.

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Perfectionism isn’t a personality trait. It’s well-disguised anxiety.

Somewhere along the way, being exceptional started working. It helped you to feel safe and valued, and it kept conflict at arm’s length. It made you feel seen by the people who mattered. Perfectionism is rarely about wanting things to be perfect — it’s about what you’re afraid will happen if they aren’t.

That’s why the usual advice doesn’t land. “Lower your standards” and “be kinder to yourself” ask you to surrender the thing that has been holding everything together, without offering anything to put in its place.

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Perfectionism may show up as:

  • Overpreparing or overworking

  • Procrastinating the tasks that matter most

  • Difficulty delegating, or quietly redoing other people’s work

  • Struggling to be a beginner at anything

  • Hearing criticism in neutral feedback

  • Feeling responsible for others’ emotions

  • Indecisiveness — and then second-guessing the decision

  • Only allowing yourself to rest once everything is finished

  • A harsh inner critic

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My approach to working with perfectionism in Austin, TX:

  • We’ll start by mapping how perfectionism actually operates for you — what it protects, what it costs, and what it’s been getting in the way of.

  • We'll get curious about where it came from. Perfectionism usually served a real purpose in the family or culture you grew up in. Somewhere, good enough wasn't enough.

  • We’ll notice it in the room. You may find yourself trying to be a good client, or worrying you’re not doing therapy right. That’s useful material, and I’ll name it warmly when I see it.

  • You’ll practice tolerating “good enough” in small, specific ways — and we’ll stay with the discomfort that follows, because that’s where the change happens.

  • We’ll work on self-criticism directly. Not by papering over it with affirmations, but by understanding what it’s trying to do and finding something more compassionate that does the job better.

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We’ll do it together.

Clients describe me as a good listener, warm, insightful, direct, transparent, thoughtful, and deeply caring. My hope is that you will always feel that I am in it with you. I'll meet you where you are with everything I've got.

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