Katherine Morgan Schafler

Thinking of ourselves as people who are strong, capable, good, worthy, loving, free, that identity structure needs some repeating. And by some repeating, I mean, maybe it takes you years. That's okay. That's what it takes for everybody.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Thank you so much. We're all excited about The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control finding its audience really quickly. So that was wonderful.

Thank you so much. We're all excited about The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control finding its audience really quickly. So that was wonderful.

Thank you so much. We're all excited about The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control finding its audience really quickly. So that was wonderful.

Yeah, well, so I always knew I wanted to be a therapist. It's an interesting job to know you want to be as a little kid, but I've always loved listening. And I've spent my whole life listening. So what you hear when you listen ends up being a lot in a certain way, but really funnels down to these same universal elements in another way. And I've worked in a lot of clinical settings as a therapist.

Yeah, well, so I always knew I wanted to be a therapist. It's an interesting job to know you want to be as a little kid, but I've always loved listening. And I've spent my whole life listening. So what you hear when you listen ends up being a lot in a certain way, but really funnels down to these same universal elements in another way. And I've worked in a lot of clinical settings as a therapist.

Yeah, well, so I always knew I wanted to be a therapist. It's an interesting job to know you want to be as a little kid, but I've always loved listening. And I've spent my whole life listening. So what you hear when you listen ends up being a lot in a certain way, but really funnels down to these same universal elements in another way. And I've worked in a lot of clinical settings as a therapist.

I've worked in a rehab. I've worked helping people deal with addictions of all kinds. I worked on site at Google. I had a private practice on Wall Street. I worked in residential treatment with kids who were traumatized and abused and became wards of the state. And in all of these contexts, I saw this universal theme.

I've worked in a rehab. I've worked helping people deal with addictions of all kinds. I worked on site at Google. I had a private practice on Wall Street. I worked in residential treatment with kids who were traumatized and abused and became wards of the state. And in all of these contexts, I saw this universal theme.

I've worked in a rehab. I've worked helping people deal with addictions of all kinds. I worked on site at Google. I had a private practice on Wall Street. I worked in residential treatment with kids who were traumatized and abused and became wards of the state. And in all of these contexts, I saw this universal theme.

I heard the themes of perfectionism and they weren't always coming from a place that was unhealthy. what I noticed was that perfectionism is a power. And like any power, it has a dichotomous nature, right? So it can be constructive or destructive. And I became really interested in the ways in which it is constructive and why we don't talk about that more.

I heard the themes of perfectionism and they weren't always coming from a place that was unhealthy. what I noticed was that perfectionism is a power. And like any power, it has a dichotomous nature, right? So it can be constructive or destructive. And I became really interested in the ways in which it is constructive and why we don't talk about that more.

I heard the themes of perfectionism and they weren't always coming from a place that was unhealthy. what I noticed was that perfectionism is a power. And like any power, it has a dichotomous nature, right? So it can be constructive or destructive. And I became really interested in the ways in which it is constructive and why we don't talk about that more.

Because in the research world, we've been talking about that for years. Decades of research has focused on what academics call adaptive perfectionism, when your perfectionism is there to help you and heal you, right? As opposed to maladaptive, which is when the perfectionism we all kind of think about with the kind of perfectionism that... stalls you and hurts you.

Because in the research world, we've been talking about that for years. Decades of research has focused on what academics call adaptive perfectionism, when your perfectionism is there to help you and heal you, right? As opposed to maladaptive, which is when the perfectionism we all kind of think about with the kind of perfectionism that... stalls you and hurts you.

Because in the research world, we've been talking about that for years. Decades of research has focused on what academics call adaptive perfectionism, when your perfectionism is there to help you and heal you, right? As opposed to maladaptive, which is when the perfectionism we all kind of think about with the kind of perfectionism that... stalls you and hurts you.

And so the perfectionist guide to losing control is about how to understand this power that you have as a perfectionist to not waste time and energy trying to not be a perfectionist because that doesn't work and to lean more into adaptive ways of being your whole full self.