25/07/2025
The Perfectionist Overcontroller is a mode that wants to reduce uncertainty and stop things from going wrong. To do this, the perfectionist overcontroller takes control of a situation and works to get things right.
The standards are unrelenting, attempting to provide guidance, predictability, and security by living by rigid rules.
The perfectionist overcontroller mode is commonly seen in anxiety focused difficulties, eating disorders, and obsessive compulsive disorder.
The Demanding Critic mode brings us to look at how things are supposed to be, looking at the way we do things, but also looking at the way others in the world are behaving around us. This mode has a rigid view on rules and that there’s only one way to do things, a right way, and anything else is wrong. There is an expectancy of high standards, even perfectionism, for ourselves, others, and the world around us. This high level of expectation is often joined with a relentless pressure for high achievement. Pushing more, eg. no low is too low.
Black and white, absolute, all or nothing thinking, and it often contains thought processes that’s filled with "shoulds" and "shouldn’ts", "always" and "never", "have to" and "cannot".
Schema Therapy uncovers these modes and helps explore how they may have developed and how they are activated in our lives. Recognising and understanding is the first steps to the healing process, leading to developing healthier, new skills, perspectives, and ways of being in the world.
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