The Healthy Compulsive Project

Do you find yourself locked in a relentless, exhausting crusade against perceived injustices, even when they're entirely out of your control? In this episode, we explore the psychology behind 'Holy Wars' — those deeply ingrained, often futile battles we fight, driven by perfectionism, old programming, or past experiences like anger and fear. We’ll discuss why these crusades feel so necessary, the...

 You try to help, and somehow you become the enemy. You explain your feelings, and suddenly you're the one being blamed. These aren't random relationship failures — you're cycling through Karpman's Drama Triangle, and until you recognize the pattern, you'll keep fighting the same battles with different people. Psychotherapist and Jungian analyst Gary Trosclair breaks down the three archetypal role...

Why do driven, high-functioning people sometimes find themselves trapped in codependency  — bound to others in ways that feel obsessive, compulsive, and impossible to escape? In this episode, psychotherapist and Jungian analyst Gary Trosclair explores the hidden connection between compulsive personality types and codependent relationship patterns. Drawing on  attachment theory and Jungian psycholo...

Why do so many disciplined, high-functioning people keep pushing themselves long after the tank is empty? This episode explores the hidden costs of overusing willpower and why self-control, though powerful, can become destructive when it loses contact with the body, emotion, values, and limits. It looks at how rigid ideas of strength, externally driven perfectionism, and fear-based motivation can...

If you’ve ever felt unsure what you want, relied on logic where feeling should guide you, or wondered why emotions seem elusive, this post is for you. Alexithymia—“the unspeaking heart”—is not a lack of feeling, but a learned and often inherited difficulty accessing it. Drawing on research, clinical insight, and everyday examples, this piece examines how emotions become blocked, the quiet costs of...

For people who are stubbornly perfectionistic, obsessive and compulsive, change can be hard to come by. Particular personality traits that can be positive can also manifest negatively. In this post we explore six of the main blocks to change, including, avoidance motivation, impatience, magnifying difficulties, unrealistic goals, being too cerebral, and clinging to the safe benefits of old ways.  

There are both among us and within us young souls and old souls. Some of them fulfilled and some of them unfulfilled.  Typically, people with obsessive-compulsive personality traits are old souls, and they can express that part of them either constructively or destructively. But usually their young soul is silenced.   This old soul is one manifestation of the archetype of the Senex, or the old man...

Risk aversion once kept us alive. Today, it often keeps us trapped. Drawing on evolutionary psychology, personality theory, and clinical experience, this essay explores how outdated risk‑avoidance strategies—especially common in obsessive‑compulsive personality styles—shrink our lives, suppress desire, and turn comfort zones into psychic prisons. Living longer isn’t the same as living better.

Compulsive traits are often judged as rigid or unhealthy, but they originate in qualities that once helped humans survive. This essay reframes compulsiveness as an adaptive style—rooted in conscientiousness, focus, and persistence—and explores how these traits can become strengths when consciously directed. Through research, evolutionary psychology, and a clinical vignette, it shows how finding th...

Receiving an OCPD diagnosis can leave you unsure where to begin, but the traits that once fueled rigidity and perfectionism can also support meaningful change. This guide introduces RAILS , a five‑step framework designed to help you start removing the “disorder” from your obsessive‑compulsive personality. The steps encourage building self‑respect, acknowledging how maladaptive perfectionism has ca...

A Husky narrates a compassionate, humorous, and perceptive account of living with a human who has obsessive‑compulsive personality disorder traits. Through keen canine observation, the Husky contrasts natural dog instincts—flexibility, presence, connection—with the rigid routines, perfectionism, rationalization, and emotional struggles of the human world. The story explores themes of routine, cont...

What if the machine controlling your life isn’t out there—but inside you? Using The Matrix as a lens, this post exposes how maladaptive obsessive‑compulsive personality patterns act like internal programs that hijack authenticity, drain energy, and keep us locked in a dream of perfection, urgency, and control. Drawing from psychological research and Jungian theory, it reveals how these inner mecha...

It takes courage to make a relationship work. The courage to admit you’re wrong. The courage to persist when you’re right. The courage to take chances in communication, generosity and vulnerability. And most of all, the courage to objectively look at what’s happening emotionally inside of you. This episode explores projection and projective identification, two psychological processes that can make...

Ever felt like something was “just not right” even when nothing is wrong? Psychologists call these Not Just Right Experiences (NJREs)—a subtle but powerful force behind OCD and OCPD. Learn what they are, why they matter, and how to manage them before they hijack your peace of mind.

We’ve got perfectionism all wrong. The real problem isn’t high standards—it’s the illusion of perfectibility and harsh judgment that have been grafted onto it. Perfectionism began as a guide toward purpose, but centuries of distortion turned it into an enforcer of impossible ideals. Instead of banishing perfectionism, we can reclaim its adaptive side—commitment, persistence, and pursuit of excelle...

Explore practical insights and nuanced strategies for working with clients who have obsessive-compulsive personality traits. Drawing on 33 years of experience, this post addresses common challenges, misconceptions, and ways to foster meaningful change—while offering a behind-the-scenes look for those in therapy.

This is an extended interview in which endurance athlete, coach, and podcaster Travis Macy asks me about the driven personality and broader questions of well-being. Having set records in some truly astounding endurance races, Travis knows about perseverance, resilience and fortitude, all of which exist as potential in the obsessive-compulsive personality. We compare notes about competition, athlet...

This essay explores how perfectionist and obsessive-compulsive personalities construct “fortresses” to avoid humiliation, embarrassment, and shame. Through vivid stories and cultural examples—from Steve Jobs to Michael Jackson—it identifies four compulsive types (Boss, Workaholic, People-Pleaser, and Obsessor) and shows how their strategies both protect and imprison them.

Carl Jung famously wrote that the gods have become diseases. What he meant was that because we no longer consciously acknowledge the powerful forces we used to call gods and goddesses, they’ve gone underground and manifest in our physical and mental ailments. However unbelievable they might seem, they are still forces to be reckoned with. Such is certainly the case with Ananke, the Goddess of fate...

Explore how compulsive perfectionism creates alienation, and the science-backed benefits of as sense of connection to something larger than yourself. And discover practical ways to restore a sense of connection with Nature and the Universe for greater peace and well-being.

To make a dent in the pile of material you might feel you have to read to be up on the most recent developments in mental health, here's a practical review of the relatively new approach to therapy called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, with brief examples of how to apply it. Because one of the main goals of ACT is flexibility, it can be very helpful to anyone struggling with obsessive-compulsi...

Anxiety dreams may seem simply like a nuisance at first glance. But slow down and pay attention and you might find they have something to tell you about how you are living and how you see your world. Issues of avoidance, authenticity, and being tested can all show up in anxiety dreams. Seen as a source of wisdom, these dreams can lead you in new directions should you choose to engage with them. 

Creativity may be one of the most fulfilling activities we have. Unless it’s blocked. Then the desire to be creative can feel like torture. But there are ways to get unblocked. In this episode we will talk about the possible benefit of compulsive urges, and the destructiveness of obsessive thinking. We’ll look at how the avoidance of feelings of anxiety and insecurity becomes a block. And we’ll lo...

Seriousness is an occupational hazard for obsessive-compulsives, Type A's and perfectionists. Being serious can hurt relationships, mental health and physical health. Yet many of us feel duty-bound to be serious, and we lose out on the benefits of humor and laughter--which can melt the rigidity which comes with being so serious.  

 What happens when a rigid devotion to rules, order, and perfection replaces our ability to feel, connect, and live? In this episode, we explore two moving character studies from Fredrik Backman’s novels A Man Called Ove and Britt-Marie Was Here . Through Ove and Britt-Marie—both fictional but deeply familiar—we see the beauty, heartbreak, and potential of the obsessive-compulsive personality. The...