How Therapy Can Help People Manage Their Anxiety, Worries and Fears and Overcome People Pleasing and Perfectionist Behaviors
NOTE: These success stories are not about real people. Rather, they represent composites of experiences that people and myself have encountered in our lives. The stories have been adapted for the purpose of describing how I work as a therapist, and how people work to Worry Less and Feel Better.
Judy’s Anxiety Manifests as Excessive Worrying and Constant Seeking of Reassurance
Mark’s People-Pleasing Behavior Brought Him to Therapy Feeling Exhausted and Resentful
Todd’s Perfectionism Leads to Almost Being Fired from His Job
Judy’s Anxiety Manifests as Excessive Worrying and Constant Seeking of Reassurance
Judy suffered from anxiety for years. She worried about things on a daily basis, imagining worst-case scenarios and how to prevent them from happening.
She had been to therapy once before years ago, but she said it hadn’t helped to reduce her worries and fears.
Her anxiety had increased recently, and she didn’t know why. She always worried about making mistakes or losing her job.
She started procrastinating a lot, causing her to miss deadlines for projects. She would stay up all night to attempt to complete things at the last minute.
She knew she was smart and creative, but checked emails over and over to be certain she hadn’t made a mistake.
In the last year, she became so worried about things that she couldn’t sleep.
Her worries would end up in big worry chains:
“What if I can’t get my project done?”
“What if I make a mistake? Then I will be fired, I won’t have money, and I will fail as a provider to my family.”
Judy became quite demoralized, with little hope for her future.
Somehow, she felt she just needed to cope with the frantic pace and stop getting so caught up in it all.
Judy confided in her friend who suggested she come to see me.
When Judy arrived in my therapy office, she expressed pessimism about overcoming her anxiety, although she was desperate for the feelings to stop.
Using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Judy realized how her worries and anxiety stemmed from her intense reactions to stressful situations.
She often would overestimate any threats of potential dangers in the future.
She sought excessive reassurance and felt she had to double-check with others about her decisions.
She would make endless lists or over prepare to eliminate uncertainty.
She often refused to delegate tasks to others to make sure things were done “correctly.”
Procrastination and avoidance were Judy’s best friends.
She used distraction that often looked like “keeping busy” to avoid thinking of uncertainties.
For as long as Judy could remember, she was a worrier.
CBT helped Judy overcome her unhelpful thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about what “might” happen. She learned to focus on how to problem solve real and current concerns and to let go of trying to plan for all possible future scenarios to prevent things from going wrong.
Through therapy, Judy developed more accurate thoughts and more balanced behaviors to get her needs met.
Equipped with CBT strategies, Judy also engaged in a number of practice experiments to challenge her “what if” fears that bad things would happen.
In fact, what actually happened in these experiments was that she enjoyed herself, was more confident, and was motivated to create more rewarding social opportunities with others.
As Judy practiced her CBT strategies, she learned how to manage worries and anxieties and became a more realistic problem solver.
Although Judy still experiences worry at times just like anyone else, by the end of therapy, she was able to manage her worries with the tools she learned in therapy.
Judy felt more in control over her life and started getting her needs met without worrying all the time!
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Mark’s People-Pleasing Behavior Brought Him to Therapy Feeling Exhausted and Resentful. He was “Mr. Nice Guy.”
Mark arrived in my therapy office and reported feeling lonely and sad. He wanted a relationship but felt that when he dated, people took advantage of him.
He always seemed to attract partners who were wounded and needed help. He was very empathic and felt good about helping others and they found his support helpful.
The problem was, his partners never wanted to date him for long.
At work, Mark’s boss would continually ask Mark to do extra work as he knew Mark would comply. Mark liked to be helpful, but he was stressed because he worked late nearly every day trying to complete his tasks.
Mark would often over commit to helping others at the expense of having his own needs met.
Being Mr. Nice Guy was exhausting and lonely work.
Mark increasingly became resentful of his boss but didn’t say anything to him out of fear that his boss would become angry.
Mark realized he needed help and booked his first therapy session with me.
Mark was a bit agitated and uncomfortable during our first session. He stated that he was worried I would judge him.
We explored Mark’s “Good Reasons” for his concerns and discovered that he believed that people liked him based on what he did for others, rather than liking him for having shared interests and values.
He worried about being judged, and it led to a discussion about how Mark’s “people pleasing” behavior maintained this fear.
For as long as Mark could remember he worried that people would reject him if he didn’t do what they wanted. He remembers trying to please his parents all the time.
Mark’s accommodating behavior often meant that he placed other’s needs ahead of his own because he was so busy trying to ensure people liked him or wouldn’t be disappointed with him.
In therapy, we started off with some exercises to challenge Mark’s beliefs about how he had to make people happy, or to fix other people’s problems.
Then, we developed a plan for Mark to begin to tell his boss about his workload. This meant he would be saying “no” to any extra work he was asked to do.
Although Mark was anxious about talking to his boss, he eventually asserted himself, and much to his surprise, his boss was understanding.
Mark was extremely pleased with himself.
His newfound success gave him the courage and compassion to start saying “no” to other people when they asked him to do things he didn’t need or want to do.
Some people didn’t seem to want much to do with Mark once he stopped being so agreeable, but Mark realized that this only happened with people who did not appreciate his friendship and he was good with that.
Eventually, Mark’s relationships improved.
Now that Mark was feeling more compassionate about his own needs, he wasn’t so attracted to partners who “needed” him to fix their problems. He began to date people who did not take advantage of “Mr. Nice Guy”.
By the end of therapy, Mark stated that he felt like a new person and was getting his needs met in relationships and at work.
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Todd’s Perfectionism Leads to
Almost Being Fired from His Job
When Todd arrived in my therapy office, he was severely distressed because he was close to being fired from his job.
Todd had a major report due at work that he didn’t complete on time… again.
Todd was smart and creative and realized that his self-worth was somehow tied to being overly dependent on the pursuit and achievement of unrealistic high standards.
However, he also thought this might be a good thing…. “It’s good to have high standards, right? Isn’t that why I got a promotion?”
Todd was recently promoted and was pleased about that, but then he started thinking that maybe it was because no one else had applied for the job.
He arrived early to work all the time so that he could do extra prep each day and he stayed late.
Todd was exhausted, and his partner kept complaining he was not spending enough time at home.
Mark didn’t seem to have time for friends either.
Not being able to meet his report deadlines at work wasn’t because Todd didn’t work on these reports. In fact, he wrote and re-wrote like crazy. The problem was he would not stop working on them.
There were “Good Reasons” for Mark’s perfectionist behavior:
He wanted the reports to be flawless.
Mark avoided getting started on his reports and would organize excessively, making endless lists, which took a lot of time.
He went over and over his reports editing and editing.
He really didn’t know when to stop.
Excessive perfectionism cost Todd the joy of doing other things.
Further, Todd was becoming increasingly socially isolated due to the time he spent working on his reports.
Todd eventually felt he was having an “emotional breakdown.”
His bouts of anxiety and depression were increasing, yet he could not bring himself to hand the report in, as it still wasn’t “good enough.”
Todd decided he needed a psychologist to acquire the skills to manage his anxiety and perfectionism.
Underlying Todd’s perfectionism was a belief that his self-worth was dependent on achieving exceptional high standards.
During therapy, Todd described his situation, and we began to work on his problems using CBT.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Helped Todd Shift His Critical Thoughts About Himself
As we worked together in therapy, Todd began to understand how his perfectionism was maintained.
As he became increasingly more aware of the traps of perfectionism, Todd was slowly able to challenge them and practice realistic alternatives.
Todd started to believe that he was a creative and talented person who produced good work and was appreciated by others. He didn’t need to be perfect all the time.
Todd worked hard on his therapy homework assignments that we collaborated on together, and finally, he was able to hand his reports in on time at work and made room for a good social life.
Todd eventually came to accept that his work was of excellent quality even if it had had some flaws at times.
As Todd’s self-esteem improved in therapy, he began to feel better about his life.
He was more relaxed and engaged with others at work and in his social life, and consequently enjoyed his job more.
I can help you too!
Contact me to book an appointment in my counselling office in Vancouver or online.
If you’re unsure about booking a session with me, you’re welcome to call me to discuss your concerns. Together, we can determine if I am the best person to help you.
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