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Press & Media Kit
Everything you need in one place: bios, topics, recent appearances, headshots, and how to reach Desirae.
Bios
Desirae Terry, LCSW, is a psychotherapist, speaker, and author of the forthcoming narrative nonfiction book Good Girl, Interrupted.
Desirae Terry, LCSW, is a psychotherapist, speaker, and writer helping women untangle perfectionism, people-pleasing, overfunctioning, and self-abandonment. Drawing from clinical work and her own experience with medical trauma, disability, and the loss of her ability to carry more children, she helps women live more authentically.
Desirae Terry, LCSW, is a psychotherapist, speaker, writer, and mother of three whose work explores perfectionism, people-pleasing, overfunctioning, and the invisible rules women learn to live by.
For years, Desirae built her identity around achievement—first as an elite gymnast, then as a therapist, wife, and mother. That framework was shattered after a spinal procedure during pregnancy left her temporarily paralyzed and unable to carry more children, beginning years of rehabilitation, medical trauma, chronic illness, and ultimately a diagnosis of a connective tissue disorder.
Today, she combines clinical insight with lived experience to help women recognize the patterns that keep them performing, pleasing, and disappearing inside their own lives. Her work centers on what she calls the Five Perfects: the internal rules that tell women how to be good, useful, successful, likable, and acceptable.
Desirae writes and speaks about what becomes possible when perfection stops protecting us.
By the numbers
- 80,000views in 20 days
- 43,000views on a single video
- 4podcast placements
- 10speaking engagements
- ~30%monthly newsletter growth since the June 2026 launch
Topics she speaks on
Appearances
| Date | Outlet | Title | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 2026 | HUMAN ENOUGH podcast | When Perfection Breaks: Rebuilding Your Identity After Trauma | Listen |
Speaking engagements
- NYC Department of Education schools: teachers, staff and parents
- Dallas ISD schools: teachers, staff and parents
- Parent organizations
- Faith communities
Questions for hosts
- You were 24 years old and pregnant and something catastrophic happened that changed your life. What was it?
- You were an elite athlete, a new mother, and recently paralyzed. How did you decide to become a psychotherapist?
- You experienced debilitating grief in so many forms—the loss of your physical abilities, your ability to carry children, the loss of your brother. How do you rebuild a life after such loss?
- What’s it like to be a disabled mother? What’s it like to manage the expectations and pressures of what a mother “should be” versus what you are able to give?
- What are the signs that perfectionism is running someone’s life?
- How has America shaped women’s propensity to over-perform?
- If someone wants to take the first step in taking ground back from perfectionism, what should they do?
- Follow-up: once you’ve named your critical voices, what’s the next step?
- If perfectionism is no longer your compass for making choices, what should be that guiding light?
- How does one determine their value system, and how does living in that prevent burnout and sustain confidence?
What people are saying
“This book is incredibly special. Desi’s story is powerful, validating, and deeply empowering. Desirae gave me a completely new lens for understanding the ways I’ve learned to perform, achieve, and take care of everyone around me, and I found myself rethinking parts of my life I had never questioned before. I finished it feeling more compassionate toward myself and more certain that I’m allowed to live differently.”
“Every time Desirae posts, I feel like she has put words to something I’ve been experiencing but couldn’t explain. Her work makes me stop, rethink the rules I’ve been living by, and want to know myself more honestly. I’m constantly saving her posts and sending them to my friends saying, ‘THIS.’”
Get in touch
Media, podcast hosts, and literary agents: [email protected]
Event organizers: check speaking availability.