Are You a Thinkaholic?
by Patricia Weitzman, PhD

Editor’s Note: Patricia Flynn Weitzman, PhD is a life coach and coaching researcher. She holds a PhD in developmental psychology. Dr. Weitzman served for many years on the faculty at Harvard Medical School where she conducted research on communication issues in healthcare. She also delivered communication skills and career development workshops to Harvard faculty. In addition to running her life coaching practice, Dr. Weitzman is currently the Principal Investigator on a National Institutes of Health-funded study on coaching and health. She is also working on a book entitled: Thinkaholic Mom: Using Quaker Wisdom to Stop Stressing about your Children. She can be reached at: pat.weitzman@gmail.com or 617-455-5976. Her website is: www.patwcoach.com.

My coaching client Lisa has all the symptoms of thinkaholism. She’s a perfectionist who never seems to be satisfied with how things are, no matter how good things get. There is always something else to be analyzed, fixed or improved. A 37-year-old married mother of two, Lisa has undergraduate and law degrees from an Ivy League university. She is an associate at a prestigious law firm in a major city, and makes an excellent living. Most weekends Lisa spends some time on work-related activities. As a result, she worries that her work success comes at the expense of her children’s well being. If she were a better mom, wouldn’t she have put her legal career on hold to stay at home like so many of her girlfriends from law school? Her husband wants to relocate to the suburbs. He thinks it would be a better place to raise their children. Lisa keeps reviewing the pros and cons of a move, but cannot make a decision. She often stays up past midnight reading the latest books on childrearing. Sleep is sometimes difficult because her mind is always revved. Work, kids, husband, home, work, kids …around and around it goes. Lisa came into coaching because her 11-year-old daughter started getting stomachaches on the morning of tests or school events. She fears that some of her own perfectionistic habits may have rubbed off on her daughter, and wants to let go of them. Creating a more balanced life was another high priority goal for Lisa.

During our first session, I asked Lisa what being “good enough” sounded like to her. She said it sounded like another way of saying you’re a loser. Hence, the heart of the thinkaholic’s dilemma: anything less than perfection is irresponsible, slackerism. With that assumption, you can never ever be off guard or off the hook for anything. No wonder thinkaholics are prone to depression. It’s hard not to collapse under the weight of what amounts to unattainable standards. It takes work and discipline to let go of perfectionism. There is no easy fix. It boils down to learning acceptance; learning that no amount of control, micromanagement, or “doing” can ever eliminate life’s uncertainties.

To begin the process, Lisa adopted a daily body-centered meditative practice. She chose yoga, which was very hard to fit into her schedule. However, Lisa was so determined to change her tense way of life that she made it happen. Immediately, she felt the benefits. It has been my observation that for individuals with thinkaholic tendencies a body-centered practice such as yoga, qi gong, praying the rosary, davening, or a type of meditation called HeartMath can be a more accessible route to mindful awareness and acceptance than meditation approaches which emphasize following the breath and noticing thoughts. While the latter approaches are about quieting the body to make room in the mind for awareness, many individuals experience them as mental processes happening in our brains. Individuals on thinkaholic overdrive can quickly become discouraged with meditation that feels focused on the brain. As a person who can overthink myself, I understand the frustration. A body-centered practice can prevent early abandonment of meditation by those who overthink. Moreover, thinkaholics live so much inside their own heads, they can forget they even have a body. Many are avid exercisers, but relate to their body as a foe to be whipped into submission rather than a home to be lived in and cared for. Body-centered meditation can bring them back home. Mindfulness meditation can have significant value for thinkaholics, too. It seems to me that it can constitute a next step, if desirable, after a body-centered practice has been established.

In addition to a body-centered practice, I encouraged Lisa to use her lawyerly attention to detail to start to notice things as they are. The slightest bit of stress propels thinkaholics so quickly into problem solving mode that they often fail to fully notice what is in front of them. To address this tendency, I suggested that Lisa start by noticing little things like how the computer keys feel under her fingertips or how her toes feel in her shoes; life’s pleasurable moments as well its mundane ones. My suggestion was informed by the early 20th century Quaker teacher, Rufus Jones’, assertion that the search for peace is not, nor ever should be, complicated. No elaborate spiritual practices, no magical incantations, no life-denying training. The best “technique” is a simple, wholehearted return to the life right in front of you, faced with open eyes and unflinching honesty. Jones, a quintessential Quaker, held simplicity in high esteem, seeing it as radical honesty applied to every domain of life: spiritual practice, human relations, earthly living. Popular notions of simplicity are all about downshifting, reducing carbon footprints, cutting back on excess, etc. To Jones, simplicity is about abandoning all self delusion. Cutting back on material excess, according to Jones, is a valuable support to simplicity, but no substitute for the radical honesty which constitutes it. Honestly “seeing” what is right in front of us, and responding with honesty and integrity, is how to practice simplicity. The main delusion which thinkaholics operate under is that they can eliminate life’s uncertainties. Because the certainty they crave cannot be obtained, their endless search for it compounds feelings of stress in a vicious cycle. Lisa began seeing her life more honestly before she called me. Together, we are co-creating a more delusion-free, peaceful way of life for her. Of course, she has a ways to go. But Lisa’s unflinchingly honest self assessment, combined with her inner drive and persistence— two strengths which have helped her succeed as a lawyer—will be considerable assets for her as she applies them toward one of her most important life goals: learning to let go.

Thinkaholism is an adaptation to the early childhood fear that our parents won’t love us or care for us if we are not perfect. Lisa’s daughter had already started to show signs of it. Getting it right becomes a mental preoccupation from a young age, a way to ensure that we will be worthy enough of love and protection. The little thinkaholic-in-the-making becomes adept at identifying and learning “good” behaviors in various settings (home, school, etc.) and then adopting them absolutely. Thinkaholics obsess about their lives, and respond to fears that arise with repetitive, security-seeking behaviors. Most of these repetitive behaviors are cerebral and analytical, and so are highly functional, especially in the workplace. But they have a shadow side often seen most clearly at home. While Lisa does not have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), Yale professor and OCD expert James Leckman points out that everyone falls somewhere on the OCD continuum— whether the stimuli that triggers repetitive, security-seeking behaviors (compulsions) be linked to hygiene, religion, structure, or aggressive urges, as for those with OCD, or achievement, food, alcohol, shopping, our children, as for the rest of us. Thinkaholism takes root in a perfectionistic personality. Analysis, hypervigilance, and continual problem solving are the preferred repetitive behaviors used by thinkaholics to quell anxiety. Unlike overeating or drinking, though, overthinking is mostly invisible, making it easier to indulge without sanction. The invisibility of overthinking can make it especially hard to give up. But self control and drive are unique strengths of thinkaholics, so it is by no means a lost cause.

There are many tendencies associated with a perfectionistic personality type. Here are some:

• feeling guilty when you aren’t getting something done
• difficulty trusting that things will probably turn out ok
• needing to perform a task flawlessly, sometimes procrastinating as a result
• doubting that a task was done well enough after it has been completed
• suspiciousness about being manipulated or taken advantage of
• being seen by others as picky, fussy, or critical
• trouble making decisions or second guessing decisions already made
• heightened self discipline and self control
• heightened sensitivity to rules, always striving to abide by them
• becoming extremely upset when criticized
• heightened self-reliance and/or fear of dependency on others
• frequently critiquing behaviors of loved ones for their own good
• presenting too much info verbally out of fear of leaving something important out

Perfectionistic individuals don’t have to have all of these tendencies. Most possess a mix. A powerful need to feel in control, so as to avoid failure and create a sense of security, is the overriding characteristic that binds all perfectionists. And overthinking is the behavior basic to all of perfectionism’s flavors.

Aside from the havoc overthinking wreaks on the inside, for those who are parents, it can also have a negative impact on our children. Indeed, obsessing about our kids can become a way to quell our own anxiety. As a result, many thinkaholics try to micromanage everything that happens to their children. Along the way, we teach our children that we really, really need them to get things right. To make matters worse, we aren’t really confident that they actually will get things right, so we hover over them. Talk about a double whammy. Even if we use all sorts of sensitive, nurturing language with our children, our pressuring behaviors speak far louder.

Everyone wants to do well. The desire to do well is normal, especially if it’s for the intrinsic pleasure an activity can bring. Children who internalize this desire early reap the rewards of academic, athletic, and other types of success. Too many, though, become rigid about performance along the way, turning a character strength into self torture. Researchers into perfectionism say the problem is increasing among children. They speculate that this is so, at least partly, because children’s achievements have become a status symbol for parents to an unprecedented degree. Hence, all the parental micromanagement going around. Sadly, pressure to achieve is perceived by our children as criticism for mistakes; criticism turns out to be implicit in the pressure. Helicopter parenting, too, is a form of parental control, fueled by the mistaken belief that we can effectively steer the course of our children's development. As much as I hate to admit it, I know I am susceptible to status-building via my children. There are times when I care a little too much about their achievement and “success”. When I get hooked into micromanaging them, I try to remind myself that I may be nudging them toward overthinking, not to mention making them miserable right now. The reminder helps me to unhook.

Researchers who study children’s brain development know that what children observe most carefully, explore most zealously, and hypothesize about most elaborately are the people around them. Perfectionistic parents may, on the one hand, be more likely to produce perfectionistic children. On the other hand, though, we have one tool in our kit that other parents may not, which is the ability to assiduously apply ourselves to a task. If we apply ourselves to the task of acceptance, we will not only feel better, butpossibly light the way for our children. At least we won’t be so stressed in relation to them. Let me be clear, though, freeing onself from thinkaholism is a worthwhile goal in and of itself. Imagining that they are responsible for everything that happens to their children, and therefore that everything they do as a parent is of the utmost importance, is what gets thinkaholic parents into a state of stress in the first place. It was essential for Lisa to recognize right off the bat that she was in coaching for her. Yes, there may be some positive spillover for her daughter, then again, maybe not. Above all, recovering from thinkaholism will be Lisa’s gift to herself.


Note:
HeartMath is a simple body-centered meditation approach which draws from yoga, mindfulness, and biofeedback. The HeartMath Institute in Boulder Creek, CA, has a number of technological tools to aid in learning HeartMath. The method can also be mastered without the use of tools. An excellent description of the method can be found in chapter 4 of the book entitled: The Instinct to Heal by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD.