Control freak is acolloquialism for a person who feels a psychological need to constantly be in charge of things and people around them. A control freak can becomedistressed when they feel things are going out of control.^[1] The feel of the need to control is often attributed to the underlying fear of losing control over their lives.^[2]

This expression was introduced around the 1960s and it is not a clinical one.^[3]

Control freaks tend to have a psychological need to be in charge of things and people – even circumstances that cannot be controlled. The need for control, in extreme cases, stems from deeper psychological issues such asobsessive–compulsive personality disorder (OCPD),anxiety disorders, orpersonality disorders.^[1]

Control freaks are often insecure andperfectionists.^[4] Additionally, they may evenmanipulate or pressure others to change to avoid having to change themselves. They may have had an overbearing mother or father.^[5] Furthermore, control freaks sometimes have similarities tocodependents, in the sense that the latter's fear of abandonment leads to attempts to control those they are dependent on.^[6]

• Steve Jobs — Steve Jobs was a perfectionist who favored the closed system of control over all aspects of a product from start to finish — what he termed the integrated over the fragmented approach.^[7] AsSteve Wozniak, his long-term collaborator and occasional critic, put it: "Apple gets you into theirplaypen and keeps you there".^[8]
• Queen Victoria — A series of three documentary programs onBBC2 in the UK in January 2013 calledQueen Victoria's Children argued that Queen Victoria was a pathological control freak by the way she controlled the welfare of all her children.^[9]

• Slang
• English phrases
• Pejorative terms for people
• Power (social and political)
• Control (social and political)

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata