Perfectionism & Self-Esteem Therapy for Adolescents, Teens & Young Adults in Connecticut
Specialized virtual therapy for perfectionism, self-esteem, and self-worth concerns throughout Connecticut.
“You’re allowed to be a work in progress and still believe you’re pretty damn great.”
— Kendra Dascano, LPC-A
Something’s gotta give.
You’re exhausted from feeling like nothing you do is ever quite good enough.
You get the grade or accomplish the goal and somehow your brain immediately finds the one thing you could have done better.
You compare yourself to everyone around you, overthink what people think of you, and put so much pressure on yourself to get it rightthat even small mistakes can feel huge.
Maybe you procrastinate because you’re terrified you won’t do something perfectly. Or you work yourself into the ground trying to make sure failure isn’t even an option.
And underneath all that striving is the quiet belief that maybe if you were smarter, more successful, more attractive, more something, you’d finally feel good enough.
You don’t have to keep proving that you’re good enough.
Perfectionism has a way of convincing you that being harder on yourself will make you more successful, more likable, more worthy. But eventually, all that pressure starts costing you more than it gives you.
The goal isn’t to stop caring, lower your standards, or suddenly become someone who never doubts themselves.
It’s learning that you can want big things without your worth depending on whether you achieve them. You can make mistakes without making them mean something about who you are. You can be proud of yourself before you become some imaginary “better” version of you.
This is where things start to shift.
Imagine going after the things you want without needing to know you’ll get them exactly right.
You feel proud of yourself without immediately finding the flaw. Make a mistake without replaying it for the next three business days. Get a compliment without arguing with the person who gave it to you.
We’ll get curious about the standards you hold yourself to, where they came from, and whether they’re actually helping you build the life you want. We’ll practice making decisions without needing complete certainty, setting boundaries without over-explaining, and letting mistakes be mistakes instead of evidence that you’re not good enough.
And all of that creates more room to actually enjoy the life you’ve worked so hard to build.
You can be present at dinner instead of analyzing what you said. Send the text without rereading it six times first. Say no without writing a paragraph explaining why. Get to the end of the day and think about what you experienced, not everything you could have done better.
You can set big goals because they matter to you, feel exciting, or simply because you want to, not because achieving them will finally prove that you’re good enough.
Little by little, you’ll find yourself taking up more space, trying things you could fail at, saying what you actually think, and becoming a little less concerned with whether everyone approves.
When you’re not spending so much energy trying to get life “right,” you have a lot more room to actually live it.
I can help you get there.
Meet the therapist who gets it.
I’m here to support you, challenge you, laugh with you, and help you start seeing yourself as so much more than what you accomplish or how well you perform.
Because I’ve been on the other side of the therapy room with some of these same struggles; the pressure to get everything right, the constant comparison, the overthinking, and that frustrating little voice that can turn even your biggest wins into “yeah, but I could’ve done better.”
Together, we’ll work on turning down that inner critic and building the kind of confidence and self-compassion that doesn’t disappear the second you make a mistake, disappoint someone, or fall short of your own expectations.
We’ll figure out what you actually want, not what you think you should want, and help you take up space, trust yourself, try things you might not be perfect at, and build a life that feels like yours.
You get to learn that who you are right now is already worth knowing, liking, and rooting for.
Self-Esteem & Perfectionism FAQs
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Not necessarily. Wanting to do well can be healthy and values-driven. Perfectionism tends to add fear, rigidity, and self-worth into the equation, making mistakes feel threatening and "good enough" difficult to accept. The goal isn't to stop caring or lower your standards. It's to help those standards stop controlling you.
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It can genuinely feel that way, especially if self-criticism has been motivating you for a long time. We won't ask you to suddenly stop caring about your goals. Instead, we'll explore whether fear and criticism are actually necessary for you to succeed and work toward motivation that doesn't require tearing yourself down in the process.
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Nope! If loving yourself feels impossibly far away, we don't have to start there. Sometimes the work begins with understanding yourself, becoming less critical of yourself, or simply learning to treat yourself with more fairness and compassion. We can build from there.
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ItThat's something we can explore together. When you've spent years measuring yourself through productivity, accomplishments, appearance, relationships, or other people's approval, separating your identity from those things can feel unfamiliar. Therapy can help you reconnect with your values, wants, needs, interests, and sense of self beyond what you accomplish.
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Depending on your needs, I draw from CBT-informed, DBT-informed, and ACT-informed approaches, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Narrative Therapy interventions, and the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM). This might look like challenging all-or-nothing thinking and impossible standards, getting curious about your inner critic, exploring where beliefs like “I’m not good enough” came from, building self-compassion, practicing boundaries, tolerating mistakes and uncertainty, and learning to separate who you are from what you achieve.
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I provide virtual therapy for adolescents, teens, and adults throughout Connecticut, including Westport, Wilton, Ridgefield, Darien, Greenwich, Fairfield, Danbury, Stamford, Norwalk, New Canaan, Redding, and surrounding areas.
All sessions are held virtually, so you can access specialized therapy for eating disorders and body image, OCD, perfectionism, and self-esteem from anywhere in Connecticut.
