The Healthy Compulsive Project Gary Trosclair

Parenting for Type A, driven, ambitious, high-achieving and obsessive-compulsive parents requires a different approach than the one we usually bring to our lives. Rather than pushing it requires waiting, in addition to work it requires play, and rather than achievement it requires connection. And because we don't always come across as we think we do, our children may experience us as being more demanding than we actually are. Both Type A parents and their children will find this informative. Please join us for this research-based exploration of the perils and potentials of the obsessive-compulsive parent. 

If you've ever wanted to tell people or the world to shut up, back off, and quite pressuring you, you may have experienced Demand Resistance. This can be effective, but in some cases it might mean that you don't get your emotional needs met. Understanding what motivates you to protest, rebel or go on strike is an essential step in learning to use resistance skillfully. 

Take a moment to step back and look at the big picture of your life. Too often we lose track and lose our way, allowing defenses, habits, and behavioral avoidance to take us away from what's important. This may be most true of those with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder--whose intense drive can take them off course more quickly than other disorders. As even the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual says in its diagnostic criteria for OCPD, "Is preoccupied with details, rules, lists, order, organization or schedules to the extent that the major point of the activity is lost." Take that same energy, plug it into honoring meaningful priorities, and you're on track to becoming a healthier compulsive.  

Letting go and giving up are near enemies: one is healthy while the other might try to look like it's healthy, but really isn't. Letting go frees us to pursue more fulfilling ways of living, while giving up causes depression. Join us for a discussion of the differences and how to come out on the better side. 

We're all equipped to hold on to the things that ground our lives and give them meaning. But that tool is too often enlisted in ways that do neither. Too often we hold onto rules, money and time in ways that make our minds crowded and noisy, and prevent us from letting in the things that really feel good. Join me in a discussion of psychological hoarding, the obsessive-compulsive tendency that runs in the background far more than we like to imagine. 

The effects of shame can be seen all around us--largely in people's attempts to avoid it. If not confronted directly, shame can lead us to either withdraw, or to compensate with achievement, virtue or perfectionism. None of which work. Join us for this exploration of one of the most destructive emotions we experience, and find a better way to handle it.