"Making Sense of Perfectionism” - A Conversation With the Author

Participants in this Community Chat are invited to read the paper, “Making Sense of Perfectionism,” (available here), before we meet, and then to come for discussion and questions. For counselors, psychotherapists, teachers, and parents, Tom Greenspon’s paper examines the lived experience of perfectionism; its emotional, psychological, and social roots; and what this tells us about the most effective ways to help others (and ourselves) move past the turmoil of perfectionistic struggles.

This session is a special community conversation, in coordination with the four-part series hosted by the NAGC Social and Emotional Development Network over the next year, in which presenters will address the concerns of those who wish to help young people overcome perfectionism.

Thomas S. Greenspon, Ph.D. is a retired Psychologist and Marriage and Family Therapist. His presentations, numerous professional and popular articles, two books, and self reflections on the topic of perfectionism span more than four decades. He teaches Couple Therapy at the Minnesota Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and is currently a member of the NAGC Diversity and Equity Committee. Tom and his wife/professional partner, Barbara, were Co-Presidents of the Minnesota Council for the Gifted and Talented in the early 1980s.