Making Peace with Imperfection: Discover Your Perfectionism Type, End the Cycle of Criticism, and Embrace Self-Acceptance

Demanding perfection in everything you do can create a life of stress, worry, and overload. With this essential self-help guide, you’ll learn to escape the perfectionism trap and cultivate unconditional self-acceptance in an imperfect world.

Are you a perfectionist?  Do you wear this title like a badge of honor, even though it creates needless stress in your life? Ironically, the stress you create by demanding perfection from yourself and others can actually make it harder to achieve your goals in the long run. It can also alienate you from friends, family, and coworkers. So, how can you escape the perfectionism trap and start living a life of self-compassion?

In this informative and practical resource, author Elliot Cohen reveals the ten types of perfectionism, and gives you the tools and skills you need to move past this distressing mind set before it leads to chronic stress, anxiety, anger, or even depression. Using strategies grounded in evidence-based rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), you’ll discover how your perfectionism is actually a result of irrational beliefs, learn to challenge these beliefs, and replace negative thoughts with compassionate ones.

Being a perfectionist can affect virtually every decision you make, and every action you take—leading to a life of perpetual stress. This book can help you put a stop to the absolutist thinking behind your perfectionism and take steps toward a calmer, more balanced way of being.

Elliot D. Cohen, PhD, is professor and chair of the department of humanities at Indian River State College, adjunct professor of clinical ethics at the Florida State University College of Medicine, and director of the Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation Institute. Author of numerous books and articles, he is a principal founder of philosophical counseling in the United States, and inventor of logic-based therapy. He writes a blog for Psychology Today, and has been quoted in major media venues, including New York Times Magazine.
 
Foreword writer William J. Knaus EdD, is a licensed psychologist with more than forty years of clinical experience working with people suffering from anger, anxiety, depression, and procrastination. He is author and coauthor of several books, including The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Depression and The Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Anxiety.