Dr. Margaret Rutherford

Margaret Robinson Rutherford Ph.D., a clinical psychologist with thirty years of experience, is also an author and podcaster. Her book, Perfectly Hidden Depression: How to Break Free from the Perfectionism That Masks Your Depression (New Harbinger, 2019) has reached thousands here in the US, as well as having an international impact, with over a dozen translations.

What is perfectly hidden depression? It's when a perfect-seeming life is acting to camouflage underlying intense emotional pain or trauma. What may have begun as protection can become its own prison.

In April of 2026, Dr. Margaret (as she's known to her listeners and readers) published a new workbook - The Perfectly Hidden Depression Workbook. This stand-alone workbook takes the telltale signs of what occurs with perfectly hidden depression and guides the reader in looking at what's keeping that trait so rigidly in place.

Her highly popular podcast, The SelfWork Podcast, has been continuously rated as one of the best podcasts for mental health and depression since 2016. And she’s been on a guest on hundreds of podcasts herself, including Dr. Caroline Leaf’s “Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess,” Lewis Howes’ “The School of Greatness,” and even more recently, Victoria Brown’s “RealPod.” Her work can also be found in her column for Psychology Today and many other websites and publications.

Dr. Margaret is known for her vibrantly engaging and theoretically well-crafted presentations, whether live or virtual, and her stress on “what you can do about it.” Whether her diverse audiences are made up of mental health professionals, construction workers or corporate managers, her passionate message is that deep emotional pain can be camouflaged by a “perfect-seeming life”, one where tight emotional control hides constant pressures of shame, despair, and intense.

Her 2023 TEDx talk, “How to recognize perfectly hidden depression,” was not only rated within the top 50 of all worldwide TEDx talks in 2023, but has now earned well over 2.3 million views, 106 K likes, and over 2K comments. Her message? Success and striving for perfection need to be balanced by emotional connection and transparency. And they can be!