GUIDED PRACTICE
Breakthrough Digital Perfectionism
Perfectionism has intensified in digitally mediated environments where comparison is constant and performance is continuously visible. Algorithmic feedback loops amplify self-monitoring, fuelling anxiety, avoidance, disordered eating, compulsive behaviours, and patterns of addictive use that undermine psychological wellbeing over time.
Support that takes context seriously.
Persistent perfectionism and self-criticism are increasingly shaped by environments of constant comparison, visibility, and algorithmic feedback. These are not personal flaws, but predictable responses to systems that monetise performance and narrow inner life.
I work with the psychological consequences of the systems we now live inside. Trained in psychology (PhD, MPhil, MSc Cantab), my background spans academia, strategy consulting, technology product work, and clinical practice — which means I’ve helped build environments that reward optimisation and then sat with the perfectionism, self-criticism, and exhaustion they produce. This work grows out of that tension: not asking why individuals demand so much of themselves, but how systems quietly train us to do so.
What's Included
- 9 step-by-step video and audio trainings (a total of 5 hours of instruction)
- 5 demonstrations of techniques to reduce anxiety for you to immediately practise.
- Downloadable timetable and reflective journal
- Scripts and templates for exactly what to do when you’re struggling
- Reminders and instructions for you to download and follow
Module 1
Perfectionism: It’s Not What You Think
Perfectionism isn’t simply having high standards. It’s what happens when self-worth becomes tied to performance under conditions of constant visibility and comparison. Digital environments intensify this by making evaluation continuous and mistakes feel consequential. This module distinguishes healthy striving from digitally trained perfectionism — where attention turns into self-surveillance and rest must be earned. We examine different patterns of perfectionism, how they are reinforced by algorithmic feedback and comparison, and how to recognise when motivation has tipped into anxiety, avoidance, or compulsion. The aim is not to abandon standards, but to loosen forms of self-monitoring that no longer serve you.
Module 2
Perfectionism is a Real thing
It’s easy to want relief without the theory. But understanding why perfectionism persists matters, because it isn’t just a preference or habit. Neuroscientific research supports this. In an fMRI study, Stahl and colleagues at the University of Cologne found that people with high levels of unhelpful perfectionism showed heightened activation in brain regions involved in error processing. Mistakes are experienced as more threatening and harder to resolve. Digital environments intensify this response. Constant feedback, comparison, and visibility train the brain to treat error as exposure rather than information. Over time, this heightened vigilance becomes exhausting, contributing to anxiety and burnout. The point is not that perfectionism is fixed, but that it is trained — and what is trained can be interrupted.
Module 3
Nature, Nurture, and Perfectionism
Research in behavioural genetics suggests that traits linked to perfectionism — heightened error sensitivity, vigilance, and self-monitoring — are partly heritable. These traits were not evolutionary mistakes. In earlier environments, caution and precision often served adaptive functions. What matters is how these dispositions are shaped by context. Digital environments intensify inherited sensitivities through constant comparison, visibility, and algorithmic feedback. Over time, this can push perfectionism toward anxiety, avoidance, disordered eating, compulsive exercise, substance use, or other addictive patterns — not as pathology, but as attempts to regulate pressure. This section explores how temperament, early relational patterns, and digital conditions interact to train perfectionism — and how recognising these influences opens space to interrupt its more damaging expressions.
Module 4
Reframing Perfectionism
If perfectionism disappeared once we recognised its costs, it wouldn’t be such a problem. Most people already know it’s exhausting — yet it persists because it’s reinforced by environment, not belief. Digital settings intensify fear of error and exposure through constant comparison, visibility, and feedback. In these conditions, perfectionism remains adaptive even when it becomes damaging. Drawing on clinical research, including the work of Roz Shafran, this session focuses on identifying what keeps perfectionism active and how to loosen the patterns of attention and self-evaluation that sustain it.
Module 5
Interrupting Self-Surveillance
Learning new patterns of response is difficult — not because we lack discipline, but because contemporary environments train relentless self-monitoring. Perfectionism teaches the mind to scan for error, judge quickly, and correct harshly. Under these conditions, frustration and self-criticism feel justified rather than excessive.
This session introduces self-compassion not as reassurance, but as a way of interrupting that internal surveillance. Drawing on the research of Kristin Neff, we examine how a less punitive relationship to the self reduces threat activation and stabilises attention. The task is not indulgence or positivity, but learning how to meet difficulty without escalating it — replacing reflexive self-judgement with a steadier, more sustainable form of care.
Module 6
Interrogating Perfectionistic Thought
Perfectionistic thinking persists because it feels precise, urgent, and predictive. Uncertainty is read as failure; anticipation becomes control. These patterns are not accurate — they are trained. Research on perfectionism, including the work of Professor Tracy Wade, shows that rigid standards and biased interpretation sustain distress rather than prevent it. Digital environments intensify this by rewarding certainty, comparison, and rapid judgement. This session focuses on slowing interpretation and questioning the authority of perfectionistic thought — restoring flexibility, judgement, and choice where prediction has taken over.
Module 7
Behavioural Experiments
erfectionism is sustained not only by thought, but by digitally reinforced behaviours — constant checking, optimisation, overwork, comparison, and withdrawal from rest. These behaviours promise control in environments designed to keep attention unsettled. Drawing on clinical research into perfectionism, including the work of Professor Sarah Egan, this session focuses on testing what these behaviours actually produce. Rather than assuming they are necessary, we examine their real effects on attention, stress, and daily functioning. Through small, deliberate experiments, we explore what happens when performance-driven routines are interrupted — when metrics are softened, checking is reduced, and time is reclaimed for activities not organised around output. The aim is not to abandon standards, but to recover balance in systems that reward exhaustion.
Module 8
Action Planning
Digital environments make it easy to stay busy without making progress. Perfectionism often fills time with monitoring, optimisation, and deadline anxiety rather than movement. Drawing on structured planning research, including the work of Corrie and Palmer (2014), this session focuses on translating insight into concrete action. The emphasis is on designing plans that reduce pressure rather than increase it — fewer metrics, clearer boundaries, and forms of review that support follow-through without turning self-monitoring into another source of stress.
Addendum:
Counter-Habits
This closing session focuses on making the work liveable in digitally saturated conditions. Not adding more practices, but letting the right ones settle — so they endure rather than become another performance. Drawing on research in positive psychology, including the work of Scott Glassman, we examine how habits actually take hold in lives shaped by distraction, comparison, and limited attention. The focus is on rhythm, friction, and fit: integrating practices in ways that soften perfectionistic pressure rather than intensify it. What lasts is rarely dramatic. Small, well-placed structures outlive ambitious routines. We end by shaping a rhythm that can withstand ordinary digital life — and still hold when pressure returns.
Insight matters, but sustaining change usually requires structure and support. If you’d like to explore one-to-one work, you’re welcome to book a conversation.
THE ALGORITHMIC MIND
Counter-Practices
Contemporary life is organised around optimisation — productivity, performance, self-management — a logic that now shapes inner life, attention, and relationships. These counter-practices offer a brief step outside that rhythm, slowing attention and reconnecting us with shared presence, curiosity, and embodied meaning-making.
About you…
You may be functioning well on paper yet feel inwardly crowded — not broken, but overstimulated. You may be looking for moments, not solutions: brief encounters with awe, thought, or conversation beyond metrics and performance. Moments that restore space, curiosity, and a sense of being more than a unit of output.
About these counter-practices…
These counter-practices are research-informed experiences designed to resist optimisation and extraction. The aim is not self-improvement, but reorientation — restoring attentional depth, sensory richness, and shared inquiry. Through time-bounded, facilitated sessions informed by psychology and neuroscience, participants engage with art, music, and complex material in ways that slow perception, ease vigilance, and support deeper attention, emotional regulation, and collective meaning-making.
Keeping it authentic, fearless and compassionate
Get involved by working with me directly. Alongside receiving one-to-one support, you’ll be contributing to the development of NeuroClear — an emerging, evidence-based clinical platform focused on assessment and support for neurodivergent adults.
