What Carl Jung Would Tell You About Your Perfectionism. Ep. 122

Do you constantly see what's wrong and feel compelled to fix it? In this imagined Jungian session, a man named Percy — a bank compliance officer sent by his girlfriend for his  perfectionism — meets Carl Jung to ask how he can talk to his girlfriend, and whether he has OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder). Jung isn't interested in the label. He shows Percy how his need to be right is a mask for feeling insecure, how he identifies with the prophet archetype, and why proving yourself makes it impossible to express yourself. You'll hear Jung's powerful reframes: perfection used to mean wholeness, not precision. Certainty is closer to error; curiosity is closer to truth. Direction comes from feeling, not reason. And through Percy's dachshund dream and the Percival myth — failing to ask "What ails you?" — Jung reveals why driven, thorough people keep going in circles. If you live with obsessive compulsive personality disorder traits,  perfectionism and anxiety, or a relentless inner critic, this conversation on psychology and mental health offers a path from mask to wholeness.

What is The Healthy Compulsive Project?

For six years The Healthy Compulsive Project has been offering information, insight and inspiration for OCPD, obsessive-compulsive personality, perfectionism, micro-managers and Type A personality. Anyone who’s ever been known to overwork, overplan, overcontrol or overanalyze is welcome here, where the obsessive-compulsive personality is explored and harnessed to deliver what it was originally meant to deliver. Join psychotherapist, Jungian psychoanalyst and author Gary Trosclair as he delves into the pitfalls and potential of the driven personality with an informative, positive, and often playful approach to this sometimes-vexing character style.

You may notice everything that's wrong, and you may feel compelled to fix it all because it should be perfect. This sometimes means that you pressure yourself and others to be perfect. It's an exhausting way to live, but you feel somebody's gotta do it.

But what if Carl Jung, the famous psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, was onto something? That rigid perfectionism shows that you've fallen into an archetypal pattern that splits you from your instincts and keeps you from finding the true purpose of your tendencies.

Jung believed that perfection was never about precision. It's about wholeness, and no matter how misdirected our energy becomes, that's the goal that really drives us.

I'm Gary Trosclair, psychotherapist, Jungian psychoanalyst, and author of The Healthy Compulsive Project book, blog, and podcast. Today, we're going to listen in to an imagined session that Carl Jung might have had with a perfectionistic client.

I've often wondered how Jung would have worked with some of the people that come to see me, especially the perfectionist. I don't take everything Jung says as   📍 📍 gospel, but I've found that his basic philosophy is a very good place to start. Here's what came to me as I imagined his consultation with Percy.

So Percy starts, "Good morning, Dr. Jung. I was referred to you by Gary Trosclair, a therapist in New York. I'd been looking for a specialist to help me deal with what my girlfriend thinks is perfectionism, if not obsessive compulsive personality disorder. But I couldn't find anyone that specialized in it here in Switzerland, so Gary thought that a Jungian analyst might be able to help me. "And I'm hoping you can tell me whether I have obsessive compulsive personality disorder."

And then Jung replies, "I'd be happy to see if I can help you, but I want to clarify first that while I am the famous Swiss psychiatrist named Carl Jung, I am not a Jungian, thank God.

And while diagnoses are a necessary evil to help us communicate and get a rough idea about what patients are suffering from, i don't have much interest in them.

Percy: That's okay. Perhaps it will help me to work on my, well, okay, let's call it perfectionism for now, though I'm not so sure it's a problem.

My new girlfriend, Janus, tells me it's a problem. I often make suggestions for her, but she feels I'm being controlling. I really love her, and she's already wonderful, but her life would be so much better if she just listened to me about how to do things. What she calls control and a need for order, I just call improvement and an appreciation of stability.

You see, I constantly see where things are off and how to fix them. It's almost impossible for me to have a moment in which my mind is not noticing what's wrong. While I don't think it's normal, I'm also not convinced it's bad. I don't think we can just act as if everything is fine when clearly it's not.

I work as director of compliance at a bank, and that all serves me very well there, though I have been told at times that I'm heavy-handed.

But I'm not worried about that. At least they take me seriously. What I'm really worried about is losing my girlfriend. Maybe I need some help in how I talk to her about things. Do you think you can help me?

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So then Jung replies, "It will be more a matter of helping you to help yourself, but let's see what we can do.

But first, I should ask you, do you want to change? If you're here just to placate your girlfriend, you might wanna save your time and money. Is that the only reason you're here?"

I do believe in how I'm living. I think that I behave well, but it would be good if I could turn down the noise in my head.

I mentally correct people's grammar. I cringe when they aren't efficient, and my alarm bells go off whenever people aren't rational. And don't get me started about when they're immoral. It gets very noisy in my head when I don't correct them. I really feel I should, and sometimes I do.

I'd be much more popular if I didn't correct them, but popularity isn't important to me.

So Jung says, "What is important to you?" Doing things the right way and being productive. When I can't be productive, I, I get a little down. But I feel like I'm getting indulgent. What does it matter what my mind sounds like?

The only really important thing is how much I get done. Everything else just seems like a small price to pay for being a good person.

So Jung replies, "Yet you don't want to lose your girlfriend. Why is keeping her so important if living correctly and productively are the only things that are important?"

Percy, "Yes, well, I guess I overstated my case. She is important to me, and I do like to be around her. She keeps things light. While I would never want to be like her, it's nice having her around. I like watching her smile and laugh and have a good time. She's also a really good dancer. Not that I would ever dance, but I do like watching her.

Jung: "It sounds to me like she's living out something for you that you won't let yourself live out. You get vicarious gratification from her."

Percy says, "Sir?"

Jung says, "We'll get back to that, but let me catch up with you here. It sounds like you would like to change what's happening in your head.

That might mean shifting your priorities, but you might find it worth it because there is a connection between the noise in your head and 📍 Janus's complaints about you."

Percy says, "That's interesting, but I don't see how that could work."

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Jung replies, "Look, everyone is different, but there are patterns that can inform us as to what's going on inside of you and what you might need to change in order to quiet the alarms and to not lose your girlfriend.

Recognize the patterns in yourself, and you gain control where you really need it." Since we come from the country that brought us precision watches, private banks, the Protestant Reformation, and an uncompromising approach to rules, these are patterns I'm quite familiar with. More importantly, these are patterns that you may accept as normal and even beneficial, even when they're not.

So far, I suspect that you might be caught in a negative version of the patterns that heroes and saints live out, emphasizing self-sacrifice and virtue. More specifically, you might identify with the archetype of the prophet or the preacher, the heroic saint who feels the responsibility to tell everyone the right way to do things.

But Dr. Jung, I'm no saint. I am quite flawed.

Ah, yes, that's what they all say. That's part of being a saint. Once you recognize these patterns in yourself, you can start to make more conscious decisions about your values and how to live. But I must warn you, this will not be as easy as you seem to be imagining.

I should also warn you that I am old school. I'm influenced more by stories that are hundreds and thousands of years old than by influencers who have hundreds and thousands of followers. This might seem odd to you at first, but eventually you might find it refreshingly informative.

Percy: That does sound strange and a little daunting to me, but I'm at least open to hearing about it.

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So Jung says, "So tell me, when did this all start?"

Well, I can't remember it ever not being like this, but it did seem to ramp up when I got to university, and it gets even louder when I'm under pressure.

What sort of pressure?

Well, pressure to succeed and measure up, exams, interviews, performance evaluations.

I do worry that I won't live up to the expectations I've set myself up for, so I go into overdrive to prove that I'm okay.

And Jung says, "My colleague Alfred Adler would say, 'Aha, you have an inferiority complex and you're trying to compensate for it.' He was onto something, and it might be true to some extent about you, but that's only part of the story.

I have different thoughts about it, but go on. Why the angst about proving yourself?"

Percy says, "I'm not sure. I mean, maybe I could dig up some stuff about my family and history, but there's nothing dramatic. I'm not sure anything like that would have caused it."

Jung says, "That might be the case. None of us has a perfect childhood or history, and certainly some of us have had it much worse than others.

But I'm not convinced that the correlation between early troubles and mental health is as exact and reductive as many think it is. Troubles can also lead to resilience as well. It's who we are and how we respond that counts. Still, we would need to acknowledge the difficulties you experienced and see how you learned to cope with them.

But that, my friend, will only get us so far."

Percy replies, "That makes sense to me, but wouldn't it be naive to think that we don't need to prove ourselves to the world?"

That's a good point. You're right. But I see any proving we need to do as a practical, secondary part of a life.

It's a means, not an end. If you're always thinking about how to prove yourself, you can't express yourself. I would describe that as the ego always wanting to remain in control and dismissing other parts of you. Your ego wants to have its way no matter what other parts would have to be left out But help me make the connection between being perfectionistic and critical and proving yourself.

I understand that you're not interested in being popular, but it does seem that having others respect you is important to you.

Percy: That's true. If I maintain high standards, standards of perfection for myself and others, no one can accuse me of being substandard.

That's the thing that frightens me the most, being accused of not trying hard enough or being lazy or selfish.

Then Jung says, "Or indulgent?"

Percy: Well, yes.

So Jung says, "What do you imagine it would take to prove yourself so that you felt more secure?"

I don't know. Maybe cure cancer or find a way to safely contain AI.

I'm only half joking. I have no desire to be famous, but I do imagine that I wouldn't feel as insecure about being disrespected if I did achieve something substantial.

Jung says, "I doubt it. I've treated some remarkably successful people who only felt more inferior the more they achieved success. Not to mention that it appears you've already achieved a fair amount of success. More success may just lead to more insecurity, what's now fashionably called imposter syndrome.

When we identify with our persona, that is the mask we want to show to the world, we can get very anxious about the discrepancy between how we portray ourselves and who we really are.

Proving that we have some value is part of having a healthy persona, but identifying with it exclusively causes us to be anxious and work too hard at proving who we are and who we advertise ourselves to be. If you want the world to believe that the mask is actually you, or even worse, if you believe that the mask you're wearing is actually you, there's no room for the real you to come out and live.

You want everyone to think that you're right and upright, but deep inside, you probably feel that you're downright worthless, and so you struggle to feel otherwise.

There is a dark side to being chronically virtuous. I would call it your shadow. It shows up in your insistence that you know the truth and the way that you communicate that truth to yourself and others. That's what Janus is concerned about. It's very controlling.

Percy says, "Yes, I have some awareness of some of these things, but even if I were willing to give up my productivity and perfectionism, it's hard to change these feelings. I do try to tell myself to loosen up sometimes, but it's hard. Still, this is all very indulgent."

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Then Jung says, "Attendez, monsieur. You just said that you tell yourself to loosen up. Who's telling who?"

Percy says, "It's just a saying, you know."

Jung says, "No, it's much more than just a saying."

Percy says, "You mean I have like a split personality or something?"

Jung says, "Well, not in any pathological way. We all have different parts, but the questions are, how conscious are we of these other parts? Who's in charge? And how well do they all get along? What part of you needs to loosen up, and what part of you knows that you need to loosen up?"

So Percy replies, "The part that feels I'm being indulgent may need to loosen up, and the other part, the part that knows I should loosen up, is faint and weak. "I usually can't hear it at all with all the noise."

Jung says, "Do you have any recurring dreams? They often show the parts of ourselves that we can't hear well."

So Percy says, "Oh, you mean like when I dream of a dachshund that's locked up in the closet, needs to do his business, and wants to go out and play?

Yeah. Well, I have that dream a lot."

Jung says, "Yes, that's just the kind of thing I was wondering about. What are your associations to dachshunds?"

"Well, they're cute, and they're vulnerable, and they were bred to dig deeply in the earth to catch badgers. But they don't really do anything these days. They just lay around, consume kibble, and crap."

Jung says, "Oh, so they aren't productive?"

Percy, "Not a bit."

Jung, "And do they need to prove themselves?"

Percy, "Not to my knowledge."

Jung, "Have you ever seen a dachshund make their owner smile?"

"Well, yes."

"That's not doing anything?"

"I wouldn't have considered that significant."

Jung, "That's part of the problem. Your bar for significance is very high. Your dachshund would never be able to jump over it, so you dismiss its feelings and lock it up. Then you're split, and when you're split, you can't be productive in a meaningful way. You don't have a common North Star to guide you.

You're pulled in different directions. When you have this dream, your unconscious chooses the dog to suggest a different perspective that might heal the split. It wants to compensate your conscious viewpoint, your ego, which is split off from your instincts.

All dogs are instinctual creatures. They don't think about right and wrong. "They don't count how many productive projects they've completed. I suspect that you would have preferred your dream dog to be a strong German shepherd or a noble Labrador retriever. "That would have fit better with your persona."

Percy, "That's true."

Jung: But you dream of a dachshund because it's humble and vulnerable. It compensates your somewhat inflated idea that you're responsible to teach the whole world how to be better. What if, instead, you can make someone smile as the dachshund does?

Percy says, "Well, that would be a stretch for me."

Jung: Well, stretching is good as far as I'm concerned. I also suspect that your unconscious chooses the image because, like the dachshund, you are no longer connected to your original purpose. He no longer digs, unless he's just tearing up your lawn for no good reason, which I'm afraid is just what you're doing in your relationship with Janus.

I'd recommend you take this recurring dream seriously and let your dog out. It's a good image for someone who's so obsessed with morality and productivity.

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Percy asks, "What would it mean to let my dog out or to dig deeply?"

Jung: It wouldn't mean abandoning your commitment to morality and productivity, but it would mean an increased openness to feeling an instinct and enlisting feeling and instinct to find meaningful direction for all of your energy.

That might feel indulgent to you at times as if you're letting go of your commitments, but it's really about finding their rightful place. You aren't abandoning your principles. You're finding the meaning behind them that you've lost

So Percy says, "I think I get it, but it's still kinda murky to me."

So Jung says, "Let me approach this differently. "There is something deeper going on inside you than just a dissatisfied girlfriend and a noisy mind. It's not just about compensating any insecurity you might have, though there is some truth to that.

But more importantly, it's about something inside that needs connection and expression. Rather than you just trying to fill up the emptiness of an inferiority complex with your productivity and rules, perhaps part of you is actually trying to express something unique to you, but it's getting hijacked by the ego that wants to be in charge and to prove itself.

It's as if a shipment of food destined for a starving village is stolen by terrorists and used to support their own violent ends. You have a lot of energy for this, but it's going into the wrong places.

I suspect that part of you wants to express and actualize something that cries for completion. "But you put your energy into other projects, "like correcting people and seeking respect by looking perfect. That's what I meant earlier about falling into a pattern as if you were a prophet or a preacher.

You see, perfection used to mean wholeness. To perfect used to mean to complete something, to make it whole, not to perfect it in your Western sense of being precise and sanitized. But you are not whole. You are divided.

Look at any flower. You'll see that it is perfect in that it has actualized its plan. It has completed the expression of its nature. "It's not because you can measure its execution in exact millimeters. It created itself perfectly.

I'd suggest that instead of asking what caused your problem of perfectionism, we ask what your perfectionism and energy are for, what purpose they were originally intended for, and what purpose it's actually served.

Anything come to mind?"

Percy says, "Not yet, but I can see why you'd ask."

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Jung says, "We have been talking for 30 minutes, and you have yet to mention anything you're passionate about other than perfection and production in very general terms. Those are only means, but you've made them the ends. You've gotten very good at sniffing out what's wrong, "but you never dig deeply into what's right.

You've said nothing about what you find beautiful or inspiring. You've said nothing about what gives your life meaning. Those are the things that make us whole or complete. The urge to perfect, complete, produce, and create can be compulsive in healthy and adaptive ways. But many people become compulsive in an unhealthy way because they've forgotten the original goal, and instead they try to prove themselves, and they just go round in circles.

Imagine that you're driving through a traffic circle, the kind that has four exits, like the four points of a compass. Without knowing which direction you want to go in, you'll keep going in circles for a long time. Sound familiar?"

I hadn't thought of it that way, but it's true. I'm not sure all my corrections have amounted to much. They don't seem to have a direction. It's just an obsession I have

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Jung replies, I think you need a mission rather than an obsession.

Your namesake, Percival, a talented and ambitious knight from King Arthur's Round Table, had a mission. But like you, he missed the turnoff to get there the first time because he was trying too hard to be good rather than follow his instincts.

Percival's mission was to heal the Grail King so that the barren kingdom would flourish again. To do so, Percival was supposed to ask him either, "What ails you?" Or, "Whom does the Holy Grail serve?" The first question shows empathy for suffering. The second question shows curiosity about what life is all for.

Either one would have healed the king and restored the kingdom. Then he would have felt like he had really accomplished something, and he would have felt whole.

Instead, because he had been told that it wasn't appropriate for a knight to ask too many questions, he prioritized what he thought was, quote, correct, and he didn't ask any questions.

He had to wander for another twenty years before he got another chance to heal the king and restore the kingdom.

While in some ways you're very different from Percival, you're both set on doing the right thing but end up doing the wrong thing. Perhaps worse, you assume that you know what the right thing is, so you don't ask any questions.

And cut off from your instinct and feeling, you have no real direction. You have no sense of what or who the perfection and productivity are meant to serve, add a lack of curiosity, and you're going in circles.

What do you think it feels like to others when you tell them what to do?

Percy replies, "Does it really matter? The real issue isn't how we feel, but how we act."

Jung replies, Your perfectionism complex is really stubborn. I don't hear much empathy or connection to your feeling side in that reply. You're split off from it, and that leaves you longing for something. But you don't know what.

It's hard to get along with people when you don't have empathy, and it's hard to find your direction. Direction comes from feeling, not from reason.

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I had suggested earlier that your girlfriend Janus was living something out for you. This is what it is: feeling, empathy, direction. You won't allow yourself to have feelings, so you have her feel things for you. This is why you feel better when she's around and empty when she's not. The threat of her absence was the only thing that was going to get you into therapy to look inside and dig deeply.

You said earlier today that you didn't want to lose her.

I can understand that and empathize with it. But perhaps the more powerful motivation contained in that is that you don't want to lose yourself And you feel like you lose yourself when she's not around. Right now, you feel she completes you, but that won't last for long.

Eventually, her spontaneity will drive you crazy, unless you change.

Meanwhile, you want to turn her into something she's not, something more perfect that satisfies you but doesn't challenge you. You've latched onto the myth of Pygmalion. You think you can create another person out of your own will. If you could change her, and I hope you won't, it would be a disaster for both of you.

Now, maybe this is just a coincidence, but the Greek god Janus could see in two directions, so he symbolized doorways and transitions. Her different perspective could serve as a doorway to a transition for you.

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And this brings me back to something else I'm curious about. How do you know when you're right?

You seem to assume that you're usually right.

"Well, other people just don't think about this stuff as much as I do. I'm very reflective and meticulous."

Jung says, "You mean obsessive and compulsive?"

Percy: "I wouldn't have put it that way. I would call it thorough, and that's one reason why I put so much stock in my own way of doing things."

Jung: "I can see that's true about you, and it is commendable, but an excess of reflection and thoroughness does not guarantee correctness. Did it ever occur to you that it's possible to be too thorough? If one tablet of acetaminophen is good for you, twelve tablets are not better. They could destroy your liver.

How do you know how many pills to take? How many does it take to feel better? If you don't know what makes you feel better, you will continue to go in circles.

Your reflection and meticulousness may actually take you off course rather than get you where you want to go. It can also make you self-righteous and close-minded rather than empathic and curious.

If you want to be right, don't be so sure. Certainty is more closely aligned with error. Curiosity is more closely aligned with truth.

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You said earlier in the session that everything always seems wrong to you. What if the real point is not that the world is off, I mean, everyone knows that, but that there's something off inside of you, "a split that needs to be repaired, a kingdom that needs to be restored. You're cut off from your humble dachshund, and you're just wandering around in critical circles because you've lost empathy, curiosity, and a sense of direction. You're no longer digging deeply."

. Percy replies, "Well, you might be right, but I was thinking I just needed a little tweaking rather than a whole overhaul. This is not what I expected."

Jung replies, "If it were what you expected, your trip up from Geneva to Zurich would have been a complete waste.

The best answer is seldom what we expected.

In the long run, it comes down to attitude, especially your attitude toward your inner life, your unconscious and your dreams. Until now, your attitude has been very closed, closed toward yourself, toward others, and toward new ideas. Your ego has wanted to see itself as the prophet with all the answers.

Everything goes out and nothing comes in. That's a pattern others have fallen into and climbed out of as well."

The main question I want to leave you with today is who or what does your perfectionism serve? If it isn't to prove yourself, what is it for?

Should you decide you want to change, I am at your disposal

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So that's it for today's episode. For those of you just getting acquainted with The Healthy Compulsive, The Healthy Compulsive project includes a book, a blog, and this podcast. My goal is to help and inspire people who are perfectionistic, driven, workaholic, , control freaks, Type A personality, and those who have traits of obsessive compulsive personality disorder, or OCPD.

This personality style can be productive and fulfilling or destructive and depressing. My goal is to help you land on the productive and fulfilling side of it. My approach is based on research, personal experience, and 35 years of clinical experience. This project offers a little humor, a little snark, and a lot of insight into what drives you but isn't obvious or conscious.

Typically, in each of my podcasts, I describe a pattern that's perhaps not completely unknown, but not known well enough to keep us from falling into it. I use my training as a psychoanalyst to try to understand the unconscious processes involved. I describe its effects, its causes, and possible ways to keep from getting stuck in it.

For more info, check out the blog, thehealthycompulsive.com. That's one word, thehealthycompulsive.com. And for a solid foundation to understand yourself and make the most of what you've got, get the book, The Healthy Compulsive: Healing Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder and Taking the Wheel of the Driven Personality.

And if you think others might benefit from any of these, please leave a review.

Until next time, enjoy the drive