Experience in technology and a personal crisis led Louise Perry to focus on the problems of others.
What’s your story?
I spent thirty years as a Creative Director in advertising, design and digital technology – that was the plan. Then life intervened spectacularly. A mental health crisis, three months in a psychiatric hospital, addiction, single parenthood, and a very long road back. Somewhere along that road I discovered the most useful thing I could do was sit with other people in difficulty. I trained as an Integrative Arts Psychotherapist, specialising in Internal Family Systems, and never looked back. Today I work with individuals and organisations navigating change. It was not the plan. It’s better than the plan.
What excites you most about your industry?
Two things, and they’re more connected than they look. In technology, what fascinates me is what runs underneath – the code, the logic shaping everything on the surface. Human psychology works the same way. The stories people tell themselves, the way they talk to themselves privately, what they believe about who they are and what they deserve – most of it invisible, unexamined and enormously powerful. My work is about helping people look at that code and decide whether it still serves them. You can go deeper and deeper and never reach the bottom. That’s what keeps me hooked.
What drives you in your career to push beyond what other people consider normal?
I’m not sure I know what normal means. I never have. What drives me is a genuine fascination with people – the lives they live, the hardships they carry, the remarkable things they do to survive. Sitting with someone as they slowly unravel something carried for years, watching them change – there is nothing quite like it. It keeps me humble. My own life has been complicated enough that I never sit in judgement. I know what it is to be in the dark. That pushes me further.
What have been the most useful skills you have learnt and applied in your journey?
Pain has been my greatest teacher. Learning to sit with it – my own and other people’s – without flinching, without rushing to fix it, without looking away. That capacity to be genuinely side by side with someone in difficulty is probably the most valuable thing I bring. My creative background has been equally important. Rather than relying solely on words, I can use art, image and creative exercises to access what talking rarely reaches – the unconscious, the unspoken, the things people don’t yet have language for. IFS and Art Therapy together are extraordinary tools for exactly that.
What’s the best piece of advice you ever received?
Two things have stayed with me. The first came from a therapist early in my recovery: “If I call you a chair, does it make you a chair?” So much of our suffering comes from believing what others have told us about who we are. The second came from twelve-step recovery: it’s an inside job. Nobody outside of you is going to fix what is happening within. Both point to the same truth – the most important work any of us will ever do is internal. Everything else follows.
Who inspires you?
Anyone prepared to take an honest look at themselves – their behaviour, their patterns, their part in things. That takes real courage and I find it genuinely inspiring wherever I find it. I believe in any situation we all have a part to play, and the people willing to examine that rather than point the finger at others are the ones who interest me most. Inspiration shifts depending on what I’m reading or listening to. Right now I’m slightly obsessed with the Canadian Prime Minister – so refreshingly intelligent and articulate in a world that often rewards the opposite.
What have you learnt recently that blew you away?
How fragile the systems I trusted actually are. I grew up believing in institutions, in leadership, in a certain order of things. Watching that unravel in real time has been genuinely shocking. But what it has taught me is something I probably should have known already – that waiting for the world to be okay before I feel okay is a losing strategy. The only thing I can truly influence is myself, my choices, my behaviour, how I show up. In a world that feels increasingly unstable, that’s not a small thing. It might actually be everything.
If you had your time again, what would you do differently?
Honestly? Part of me wants to say nothing – every decision, good and bad, led me to exactly where I am and I wouldn’t change that. But if I’m being truly honest I wish I had been more thoughtful about money and financial security. I have made some spectacular choices in that department and lived with the consequences. What I have learned, slowly and sometimes painfully, is that financial instability creates a kind of background noise that affects everything. Looking after yourself practically is not unspiritual. It’s just sensible. I’m still learning that one.
How do you unwind?
Yoga – but not the gentle, candlelit kind. Hot, hard, demanding yoga that leaves me completely wrung out. I genuinely have a better day when I’ve been to class. There is something about moving with other people in a room that does something no solo practice ever quite replicates. It also gets me out of my head and into my body, which has historically been something I’ve found difficult. When you spend your working life sitting with other people’s pain, you need somewhere to put yours. For me, that’s the mat. It has kept me sane for years.
What is a major mindset change, belief shift or ‘ah ha’ moment that you’ve experienced in relation to your career?
Someone once told me you have to let things collapse for change to happen. That hit me hard because my instinct has always been to rescue – to work harder, hold things together, fix what’s breaking. And I’m still good at delivering. But I’ve learned that sometimes, with people and organisations alike, the most powerful thing you can do is get out of the way and let the collapse happen. Pain is information. Failure is data. Real change rarely comes from comfort – it comes from the moment when there is no longer any choice but to do things differently.
Everyone in business should read this book:
The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard. It’s deceptively simple but one line has never left me – “catch somebody doing something right.” We are wired to notice what’s wrong, what’s missing, what needs fixing. But what happens when you flip that? When you actively look for what’s working and name it out loud? I have done this with my daughter, I do it with my clients, and the impact is remarkable every time. In a world of performance reviews, criticism and relentless improvement culture, the radical act might just be telling someone they’re doing well.
Shameless plug for your business or career:
I want to work with organisations. Not just individuals. Because when the people making decisions for hundreds or thousands of others are emotionally unfit, carrying unexamined stories about who they are and what they deserve, running on fear or ego or old wounds – everyone underneath them feels it. Getting leaders emotionally healthy isn’t a luxury or a nice-to-have. It’s arguably one of the most important interventions available. I bring a rare combination – decades in business and digital transformation, and deep clinical training in what actually drives human behaviour. If that sounds like something your organisation needs, let’s talk.
How can people connect with you?
The easiest way is via my website louiseperry.com or connect with me directly on LinkedIn. If something I’ve said resonates and you’d like to explore working together – whether you’re an individual, a leader or an organisation – just get in touch. And if you’ve never considered therapy, or tried it before and found it wasn’t for you, it might be worth knowing that what I do probably isn’t what you’re imagining. Integrative Arts Therapy combined with Internal Family Systems is a different kind of conversation entirely. Sometimes the most surprising door is the most useful one.
Social Media Links?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisevperry/
This interview is part of the CallumConnects series.