The Tyranny of Self-Improvement
Why the Pressure to Change Keeps Us Stuck
Why Can’t I Change?
Many people come to therapy asking, Why can’t I change? It’s a question that often carries frustration, self-doubt, and a quiet, painful belief: If I were different, I’d finally be okay.
The wish to change makes sense. When we feel stuck in the same patterns—reacting in ways we don’t want to, struggling with the same anxieties, feeling trapped in relationships that don’t work—it’s natural to want something to be different. But before we assume that change is the answer, it’s worth asking: Where does the urgency to change come from?
Many approaches to therapy, like CBT, focus on identifying problematic thoughts and behaviors and replacing them with more adaptive ones. This can be useful for certain struggles—like managing debilitating OCD symptoms or overcoming life-disrupting phobias—but it can also reinforce the idea that we must constantly monitor and correct ourselves to be okay. When therapy becomes another place where we feel pressured to fix who we are, rather than explore and understand ourselves, it can leave us stuck in the very patterns we’re trying to escape.
For many, the pressure to change is not simply about growth or possibility—it’s about escaping something. It’s about moving away from a part of ourselves that feels intolerable, unacceptable, or unworthy. And when we take this approach, we often find ourselves trapped in an exhausting back-and-forth: between trying to force change and feeling like a failure when we can’t.
Winnicott’s idea of potential space offers a way out of this struggle.
The Trap of Polarities: Stuck Between Change and Acceptance
According to Winnicott, potential space is the place between inner and outer reality, between our internal world and our relationships with others. It’s the space where creativity, play, and new possibilities emerge. But when we feel pressured to be different, or when we believe we must change to be acceptable, this space collapses. We lose access to curiosity, flexibility, and self-reflection.
Instead, we get caught in rigid polarities:
• Either I change and become someone better, or I’m stuck as I am.
• Either I achieve my ideal self, or I’m a failure.
• Either I control my emotions, or I’m overwhelmed by them.
These kinds of opposites leave no room for a third possibility—the space in between, where real transformation can take place. Playing in a potential space that allows for an open, curious mind, invites a kind of creativity that helps imagine a way of being in the world that doesn’t fall prey to narrow forms of thinking about the world.
What If Real Change Isn’t What We Think?
When we’re caught in the belief that we must change, we often overlook what our struggles are trying to tell us. The aspects of ourselves that frustrate us—our fears, defenses, anxieties—developed for a reason. They are not evidence that we’re broken; they are expressions of our histories, our survival, our deepest needs.
Winnicott saw growth as something that happens in a space of safety and recognition. When we are given room to explore, when we don’t feel forced to be different but instead feel truly seen, something shifts. We stop struggling against ourselves and start discovering who we actually are.
In other words, change doesn’t happen through force or self-rejection. It happens when we loosen the pressure to change and step into a space where we can actually use our experience—where we can play with different possibilities, rather than feel trapped in a rigid demand to be different.
Maybe You Don’t Need to Change—Maybe You Need More Space
The paradox is this: the more we feel like we must change, the more stuck we become. And the more we feel that who we are is accepted—by others and by ourselves—the more room we have to grow, adapt, and transform in ways we never expected.
At Dr. Kull & Associates, our therapists don’t push you to change or tell you who you should be. Instead, we help create a space where you can explore what it’s like to be you—without pressure, without judgment. In that space, something new becomes possible: not the exhausting pursuit of an ideal self, but a relationship with yourself that feels more alive, more creative, and more free.
Maybe the real question isn’t Why can’t I change? but What happens when I stop trying so hard to?