Dr. Tara Porter: Perfectionism, failure and embracing 'good enough'

Dial Emma

Emma Reed Turrell

Society & Culture, Mental Health, Relationships, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome back to Dial Emma! Each week, I'll be answering your dilemmas with honesty, empathy, and a few therapeutic truth bombs to help you make sense of life's stickiest moments. If you've ever wished you had a therapist in your back pocket, Dial Emma is here to help.

This week, our listener dilemma comes from a concerned mother, whose teenage daughter is struggling under the pressure to be perfect. To help me unpack it, I'm joined by Dr. Tara Porter, a chartered psychologist and author who has more than 25 years' experience in mental health - particularly in child and adolescent contexts.

We delve into the impact that academic expectations can have on young people, the importance of self-reflection as a parent, and the value of allowing young people to experience failure. Tara also shares some practical steps for parents to address their own perfectionism and embrace a 'good enough' approach to life.

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Find out more about Tara's work: https://www.taraporterpsychologist.com/

If you have a dilemma for Emma, please fill out this form.

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Dial Emma is hosted by Emma Reed Turrell, produced by Lauren Brook.

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Social media:

Emma Reed Turrell @emmareedturrell

Dial Emma @dialemmapodcast

Email: [email protected]

Transcript

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0:00.0	Right, you've been going on about this new thing all week.
0:02.8	So what is it?
0:03.9	The FCA hype type revealer.
0:06.3	It tells you what kind of investor you are. Yes, so how does it know that? Well, it measures how you respond to hype when you're investing to figure out your investor hype type. Oh, like those quizzes that tell you what favourite crispy you are. No, no, it's proper smart. So mine said I'm informed
0:19.8	So I do my research and I don't just follow the crowd
0:22.4	Alright, let's have a go
0:23.6	Right, get your phone out No, no, it's proper smart. So mine said I'm informed, so I do my research and I don't just follow the crowd.
0:22.5	All right, let's have a go.
0:23.9	Right, get your phone out and search hype type revealer.
0:27.4	Might even make you a smarter investor.
0:29.2	Nice.
0:31.2	Hello and welcome to Dial Emma, the podcast where your dilemmas meet my therapeutic insights.
0:37.8	I'm Emery Terrell, Psychotherapist author, and well-recovering people-pleaser.
0:42.4	Each week, I'll be unpacking real-life questions from listeners just like you.
0:46.9	The big ones, the small ones, the ones that keep you up at night,
0:50.5	offering practical tools and gentle truths to help you find your way through.
0:55.3	So if you've got a question, you don't know how to ask out loud.
0:58.7	You've come to the right place.
1:07.9	Welcome to this week's episode of Dial Emma, and I'm continuing a theme that's become really
1:14.4	important to me, but also I think to many of my listeners this season, which is about how we help
1:19.7	young people. It's really that grassroots mental health support. So when a dilemma came in
1:25.5	about how to help someone who has a teenage daughter who feels crushed by pressure and perfectionism, I thought this is one, if only because it really spoke to a younger version of me.
	...

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