Can’t get it right for getting it wrong

Do you often find yourself with a familiar sense that you are getting it wrong?

If so, you are far from alone. This chronic feeling of being wrong, or of being in the wrong,  can undermine our relationships with others, our work, quality of life, and creativity. It can impact how we experience ourselves when we are alone, even in moments of rest.  In the grip of these feelings, life can begin to feel like a series of small, or sometimes catastrophic, failures, punctuated by self-criticism and accompanied by an erosion of confidence.

When we try to understand where this experience comes from, and how it might be softened, it can help to look at something that appears, on the surface, to be its opposite: the wish to be right. Paradoxically, it is often this internal drive, to get things right, to be in the right, that keeps the sense of being wrong so internally pervasive.

But don’t we all want to get it right?

The difficulty is that for some people, this wish carries far more weight than for others. Rather than being a preference, ‘getting it right’ can feel like a constant internal demand. This is often understood as perfectionism. While perfectionism exists on a spectrum, those at the harsher end may live with a constant internal pressure to meet standards that are rigid, unforgiving, and often impossible to meet.

A helpful way of thinking about where this pressure comes from is through the psychoanalytic concept of the superego. 

The term superego was introduced by Sigmund Freud as part of his model of the psyche. In basic terms, the superego functions like an internal moral authority. It develops as the child absorbs societal rules, values, and expectations, usually through primary caregivers, and it plays an essential role in helping us live cooperatively and responsibly within society.

At its best, the superego helps us care about others, reflect on our actions, and regulate our impulses. But it also has a darker side and can be the source of painful feelings such as guilt, shame, and self-reproach. When it becomes overly rigid or punitive, it can feel less like a moral guide and more like an internal prosecutor, constantly pointing out where we have fallen short.

After Freud, other psychoanalytic thinkers, most notably Melanie Klein, developed the idea of the superego further. Klein proposed that aspects of the superego form much earlier in life than Freud originally suggested. These early versions are often experienced as especially harsh, demanding, and unforgiving. Rather than being nuanced or compassionate, they operate in stark, black-and-white terms: right or wrong, good or bad.

When the superego becomes activated in this early, uncompromising mode, it can significantly negatively shape the adult experience. The person may feel permanently under internal scrutiny, with a sense that no amount of effort is ever enough. Seen in this light, the relentless drive to ‘get it right’ begins to make sense. It is also why it can be so exhausting. The standards imposed by a harsh superego are continually shifting, meaning that satisfaction or relief is always just out of reach. 

Over time, this internal dynamic can drain vitality and confidence. Mistakes are experienced not as a part of being human, but as evidence of personal deficiency. Uncertainty feels threatening rather than tolerable. And the individual remains in a persistent or recurring state of feeling ‘in the wrong’.

So how might things begin to shift?

Somewhat counterintuitively, change may involve relinquishing the desire to feel right altogether. This does not mean abandoning values, responsibility, or care for others. Rather, it involves developing a more flexible and compassionate internal voice, one that can tolerate complexity and error, and one that recognises that growth often emerges from moments of uncertainty and not-knowing.

In individual and group psychotherapy, the work frequently involves bringing this harsh internal authority into awareness, understanding its origins, and starting to relate to it differently. In these settings, patterns of self-judgement and harsh superego demands, expressed verbally or non-verbally, are met with curiosity rather than condemnation. Through reflection and exploration, it becomes possible to question these self-persecutory assumptions. Over time, this helps the individual develop an inner stance that is less punishing and more curious, allowing a more humane and forgiving relationship with oneself to emerge. 

In this sense, the task of individual or group psychotherapy (and of life) is not to finally get it right, but to allow for, and even embrace, the ambiguity, imperfection, and vulnerability that are intrinsic to being human.