Psychotherapist & Jungian analyst Gary Trosclair explores the perils & potentials
of the driven personality for compulsives and their loved ones–removing the disorder from Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD)
The Healthy Compulsive Project:
Healing OCPD & Taking the Wheel of the Driven Personality
Recent Blog Posts
How do we know if we are micromanaging? If you constantly look over someone’s shoulder, give them detailed instructions, distrust them, and make mountains out of molehills, it will discourage creativity, diminish morale, and disrupt relationships. It may even lead to them ignoring you. It brings about the opposite of your desired effect. Productivity, responsibility and ingenuity all decrease. It's like trying to break a horse to train it. Instead we need to macromanage, to consider the larger picture of our values and priorities.
Read MoreHow do perfectionist and compulsive traits shape fatherhood? This post explores the challenges and opportunities for the obsessive father—how those traits can either alienate or elevate, harm or heal. Learn how self-awareness, values, and mindset can help fathers navigate the line between heroic and harmful.
Read MoreIs burying the past holding you back? Most of us live as if we are still in the past without being aware of it. Discover how understanding your personal history can help you reclaim buried strengths, rewrite limiting stories, and live more freely in the present.
Read MoreInsecurity is often the cause of people becoming unhealthy compulsives rather than healthy compulsives. It’s as if life were a test and, fearing we will fail, we resort to rules, rigidity and control to prevent failure. It can be so prevalent, yet so hard to see, that it’s like the air we breathe. But rather than trying desparately to pass the test, we can take a pass on the test, and adopt ways of living that have more meaning.
Read MoreLife is not easy, and we actually make it harder if we imagine we can sashay through it effortlessly. But we can also make life more difficult than it needs to be by imagining that the path forward is steeper than it really is. To make life easier let's explore the effect of the "Mountain Mirage," its causes and its cures.
Read MoreWhatever the motivation for withholding forgiveness, it usually hurts the holder more than it hurts the offending person. And as I’ll show in this post, not forgiving may be part of a larger mindset which blocks not just connection with that one person, but also a more fulfilling life.
Read MoreHow do you help a partner, relative or friend who feels suicidal? The situation is disturbing for anyone, and can be even more difficult for people who take too much responsibility and need to have things fixed and resolved. There are limits to what is within our control. And many of us feel too much responsibility in a situation like this. We like to think that there must be a solution to any and all problems—if we could just figure it out and work hard enough to execute that solution. But that’s very idealistic, if not naïve. Hopefully, and ideally, hearing themselves as they talk to you, and hearing you mirror their feelings empathically and simply, will help them realize that what needs to die is not they themselves, but their unrealistic standards, black and white thinking, and self-attack. Their dictator, tyrant, or judge.
Read MoreRomantic love requires a mindset different from the controlling one, a mindset characterized by allowing, openness and flexibility. Valentine’s Day and anniversaries can serve as opportunities to celebrate and welcome what feels like the chaos of passion—including those deliciously dangerous feelings of being out-of-control. It's like getting out of the prison of control. You can’t force romantic love. You can only surrender to it.
Read MorePeople with compulsive and obsessive tendencies tend to hold on to things—money, objects, time and ideas. We imagine that these things we hold on to make us more secure. But too often they bring us more stress than security. Some of the things we hold on to constitute our identity and worth. These are sacred cows in the worst sense—traits that we feel we can’t question much less let go of. And these cows are a heavy burden to carry. We’ll start with a story from the Buddha, explore scarcity mindset, and talk about two examples of women struggling with their sacred cows. Finally, we’ll discuss how letting go of sacred cows can lead to more fulfillment.
Read MoreFew of us make it through life without ever getting defensive. Shields are universal and archetypal. But, at the risk of being dramatic, how defensive we get can dramatically affect our relationships and careers. Some people keep their Shield of protection up almost all the time. Others ram it into the other person's face. Both of these can severely limit not just relationships and work, but, as we'll see, your psychological growth as well.
Read MoreFeatured Blog Posts
Your colleague Mitch works very late hours, insists on perfection in team documents, and can get pretty bent out of shape at meetings, letting people know exactly how they should be doing things. He needs to have things a certain…
Discover Carl Jung’s insights on compulsive behavior and how blocked growth can lead to obsession. Learn how to unlock your potential through individuation.
Compulsive. It’s not the kind of trait that will get you a wink on a dating app. But let’s re-frame this: people who have a compulsive personality have a lot to feel good about–if they manage their energies well. Let’s…
Why A Compulsive Personality Blog? It’s so hard to stop. Hard to stop working, thinking, perfecting, controlling, planning and doing. This drive can be tormenting. But it can also be fulfilling–both the doing and the finishing. What determines whether it’s…
A partner with OCPD (obsessive compulsive personality disorder), can be really difficult to live with. They usually aren’t aware how extreme their rigidity has become and are often convinced that they’re right all the time. Their perfectionistic, controlling and workaholic…
Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) As many as one in 12 people have the medical disorder known as Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) without knowing it. In fact, while it’s prevalent and well established as a diagnostic category, it is one of…
Constance was meticulous in everything she did. She was famous, and at times infamous, for accuracy at her job, for her fastidiousness in her home, and for her painstaking protocol when running the PTA. Her friends and colleagues said that…
People who are compulsive, workaholic or Type a personality have a, well, special relationship with anxiety. It propels them to get lots done, but it also makes it hard for them to enjoy life. And those at the unhealthy end of the compulsive spectrum, those who have Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), have such pressing anxiety that they may never enjoy life.
Recognizing OCPD and The Driven Personality A woman who recently realized that she had OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder) and had been reading my blog sent me a note sharing a few thoughts about her experience. These explain why I began…
[Available in audio format at Google Podcasts and Apple, and Spotify.] As I’ve gotten to know more people with obsessive-compulsive personality through my clinical work, writing, and online groups, I’ve come to recognize that there is a great deal of…
Many people wonder how they became controlling, driven, and perfectionistic. Or, to use the clinical label, they wonder about the origins of OCPD (obsessive-compulsive personality disorder). Mental health professionals generally agree that a combination of genes and environment, nature and…
I recently finished therapeutic work with a man whom I’ll call Fred. His story addresses the question, “Can someone with OCPD change?” and it illustrates the challenges involved. I was certain that Fred would ruin his marriage with his rigidity…
In a previous post [podcast episode 28] I wrote about the anxiety that people with obsessive and compulsive personalities face, distinguishing surface fears from deep fears, and suggesting four steps for working through the deeper fears that lead to our…
Wait, The Healthy Compulsive? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Not in my book. And I’ll tell you how I got there. Five years ago I launched The Healthy Compulsive Project, starting with a blog, and later adding a book. Today I’m…
Key to becoming a healthier compulsive is identifying the type of obsessive-compulsive personality (OCP) that you inhabit most of the time. If you start watching, you may realize that you gravitate toward certain clusters of personality traits and behaviors within…
This is the third of four posts describing in greater detail four types of obsessive-compulsive personality. These types overlap, and my terms for them are intended as invitations to flexibly explore your own tendencies–not as iron-clad categories to imprison you.…
This is the last in a series of four posts describing in greater detail four types of Obsessive-Compulsive Personality (OCP). You can have the same basic driven, perfectionist tendency of the obsessive-compulsive personality and end up a Thinker-Planner rather than…
Some people seem to use their compulsive tendencies adaptively, while others are used by their compulsive tendencies maladaptively. This could mean the difference between being productive and connected, versus being stuck and at odds with others. This interview explores what makes the difference, and how to get your compulsive tendencies working for you.
We’re all familiar with the results of typical hoarding behavior: newspapers piled in towers reaching for the celling, old mechanical parts bursting the seams of the garage, or a thousand rolls of toilet paper crouching in the basement just waiting…
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Recent Posts
- Breaking Horses: 6 Signs That You’re Micromanaging July 1, 2025
- Navigating Challenges for the Perfectionist Father: From the Horrific to the Heroic June 14, 2025
- Should You Unearth the Past? How Looking Back Can Help us Move Forward May 27, 2025
- This is Not a Test: 3 Steps to Winning the Battle Against Insecurity April 29, 2025
- Want to Make Life Easier? Break the Habits that Make It More Difficult Than It Needs to Be April 8, 2025
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