Informationen zum Autor Jeannette Dewyze is a freelance journalist. She was a staff writer for the San Diego Reader for 30 years. She cowrote Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control with Allan Mallinger, M.D. Allan Mallinger is a practicing psychiatrist in San Diego, California, and the coauthor of Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control. Klappentext For many of us, perfectionism can bring life's most desired rewards. But when the obsessive need for perfection and control gets in the way of our professional and emotional lives, the cost becomes too high. Although many of us appear cool and confident on the outside, inside we are in emotional turmoil, trying to satisfy everyone, attempting to direct the future, and feeling that we are failing. In TOO PERFECT, Dr. Allan Mallinger draws on twenty years of research and observations from his private practice to show how perfectionism can sap energy, complicate even the simplest decisions, and take the enjoyment out of life. For workaholics or neat freaks, for anyone who fears change or making mistakes, needs rigid rules, is excessively frugal or obstinate, TOO PERFECT offers revealing self-tests, fascinating case histories, and practical strategies to help us overcome obsessiveness and reclaim our right to happiness.ONE The Obsessive Personality When we would pursue virtues to their extremes on either side, vices present themselves. We find fault with perfection itself. PASCAL, Pensées This is a book about people who are too perfect for their own good. You know them. You may be one of them. And if you are, you have much to be proud of. You're one of the solid, good people of the world: honest, reliable, hardworking, responsible, exacting, self-controlled. But for many people there is also a dark side to this perfection. The very traits that bring them success, respect, and trust can also cause them serious problems. These people aren't fully able to savor relationships with others and with the world at large, nor are they at ease with themselves in their universe. Consider: The person so driven to meet professional and personal goals that she can't abandon herself to a few hours of undirected leisure without feeling guilty or undisciplined. The person so preoccupied with making the right choice that he has difficulty making even relatively simple decisions usually regarded as pleasurable: buying a new stereo; choosing where to go on vacation. The person so finicky that his pleasure is spoiled if everything isn't just so. The thinkaholic whose keen, hyperactive mind all too often bogs her down in painful worry and rumination. The perfectionist, whose need to improve and polish every piece of work chronically causes her to devote much more time than necessary to even inconsequential assignments. The person so intent upon finding the ultimate romantic mate that he seems unable to commit to any long-term relationship. The person so acclimated to working long hours that she can't bring herself to cut back, even when confronted with evidence that the overwork is ruining her health or her family relationships. The procrastinator who feels angry at his lazinessunaware that the real reason he is unable to undertake tasks is that his need to do them flawlessly makes them loom impossibly large. These are just a few of the behaviors common to people who have the personality type that psychiatrists call obsessive. This term and the related term, compulsive, have crept into our everyday language to a striking degree. This person is obsessed with baseball. That one is a compulsive shopper. Recent articles and books have also made the lay public aware of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the malady that drives its sufferers to such acts as repeated hand-washing, c...

Autorentext

Jeannette Dewyze is a freelance journalist. She was a staff writer for the San Diego Reader for 30 years. She cowrote Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control with Allan Mallinger, M.D.

Allan Mallinger is a practicing psychiatrist in San Diego, California, and the coauthor of Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control.

Klappentext

For many of us, perfectionism can bring life's most desired rewards. But when the obsessive need for perfection and control gets in the way of our professional and emotional lives, the cost becomes too high. Although many of us appear cool and confident on the outside, inside we are in emotional turmoil, trying to satisfy everyone, attempting to direct the future, and feeling that we are failing.
In TOO PERFECT, Dr. Allan Mallinger draws on twenty years of research and observations from his private practice to show how perfectionism can sap energy, complicate even the simplest decisions, and take the enjoyment out of life. For workaholics or neat freaks, for anyone who fears change or making mistakes, needs rigid rules, is excessively frugal or obstinate, TOO PERFECT offers revealing self-tests, fascinating case histories, and practical strategies to help us overcome obsessiveness and reclaim our right to happiness.

Leseprobe
ONE
 
The Obsessive Personality
 
When we would pursue virtues to their extremes on either side, vices present themselves.… We find fault with perfection itself.
—PASCAL, 
Pensées
 
This is a book about people who are too perfect for their own good.
 
You know them. You may be one of them. And if you are, you have much to be proud of. You’re one of the solid, good people of the world: honest, reliable, hardworking, responsible, exacting, self-controlled.
 
But for many people there is also a dark side to this perfection. The very traits that bring them success, respect, and trust can also cause them serious problems. These people aren’t fully able to savor relationships with others and with the world at large, nor are they at ease with themselves in their universe. Consider:
 
 The person so driven to meet professional and personal goals that she can’t abandon herself to a few hours of undirected leisure without feeling guilty or undisciplined.
 The person so preoccupied with making the right choice that he has difficulty making even relatively simple decisions usually regarded as pleasurable: buying a new stereo; choosing where to go on vacation.
 The person so finicky that his pleasure is spoiled if everything isn’t “just so.”
 The “thinkaholic” whose keen, hyperactive mind all too often bogs her down in painful worry and rumination.
 The perfectionist, whose need to improve and polish every piece of work chronically causes her to devote much more time than necessary to even inconsequential assignments.”
 The person so intent upon finding the ultimate romantic mate that he seems unable to commit to any long-term relationship.
 The person so acclimated to working long hours that she can’t bring herself to cut back, even when confronted with evidence that the overwork is ruining her health or her family relationships.
 The procrastinator who feels angry at his “laziness”—unaware that the real reason he is unable to undertake tasks is that his need to do them flawlessly makes them loom impossibly large.
 
These are just a few of the behaviors common to people who have the personality type that psychiatrists call obsessive. This term and the related term, compulsive, have crept into our everyday language to a striking degree. This person is “obsessed” with baseball. That one is a “compulsive” shopper. Recent articles and books have also made the lay public aware of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the malady that drives its sufferers to such acts as repeated hand-washing, checking routines, or other pa…