Surely many of you have had ambivalent attitudes to this approach.

It would not be uncommon, in fact, I know that many of you, to the already famous question in a job interview, can you mention any of your shortcomings? You have answered: perfectionism.

First of all, this construct seems to be on the rise in our culture ; those who reach high standards are “the cracks”, who are admired and rewarded. What happens is that in many occasions the long-term aversive consequences correlate with exhaustion, the feeling of continuous failure, isolation and many other problems that we will see next.

To begin this article, which is undoubtedly very summarized, I would like to clarify that we start from very theoretical, nomothetic (that is, very general) information, and for practical purposes, although it is necessary, it is not sufficient. In order for all this information to be useful to us, we must apply it to each case. Hold on a little while, we will talk about this at the end.

  • You may be interested in: “Perfectionist Personality: The Disadvantages of Perfectionism”

Functional vs. dysfunctional perfectionism

We will agree that the desire to do things well coupled with a high commitment to responsibility, effort and expectation, per se is not harmful at all, even less so if mistakes are taken as learning.

However, what is dysfunctional or harmful is when this is taken to the extreme, without regard to contingencies, despite the negative costs it may have in our lives, and where achievement functions as a yardstick of our worth and, of course, error is feared and taken almost as an unforgivable sin, which obviously goes hand in hand with avoidance behaviors.

This last pattern of perfectionist behaviour under aversive control , is usually called unhealthy, dysfunctional or maladaptive perfectionism, and is a trans-diagnostic factor for many important psychological problems.

The main defining characteristics of a dysfunctional perfectionist behaviour pattern are the following:

  • Need for control
  • Rigidity of thought and behavior
  • Hypersensitivity to the opinions of others
  • Excessive attachment to rumination and concern
  • Excessive self-criticism
  • Avoidance of new situations
  • Fear of failure
  • Polarized All or Nothing Thinking Style
  • Procrastination

In fact, many authors maintain a difference regarding the adaptability/unadaptability of perfectionist behaviour. Stoeber, Harris and Moon (2007), for example, distinguish from the variables: “perfectionist goals” and “perfectionist concerns”.

The perfectionist (healthy) behavior pattern is governed by high goals and low concerns . In the unhealthy one, the level is high in both variables. Some authors also argue that problems related to dysfunctional or unhealthy perfectionism are much more associated with self-critical evaluation than with high personal standards (Dunkley, Berg and Zuroff, 2012., cit. in Amores Hernández, 2017).

On harmful criticism and its maintenance

Given the relevant role that pathological criticism plays here, it is worth considering McKay’s (1991) approach to explain its maintenance, we already know that this is by means of reinforcement, let’s see:

Regarding the positive reinforcement of criticism, the author mentions two fundamental lines that are the following: the need to do good and the need to feel good. On the other hand, he adds, it is the feeling of control of our feelings of pain such as guilt, fear of rejection and frustration, which works as a negative reinforcer (Amores Hernández, 2017). Again, on a case-by-case basis, we have to review whether these or other needs would have that reinforcing function .

Rumination and excessive worry

Nolen-Hoeksema and colleagues (2008) defined rumination as “repetitive thinking about the causes, consequences and symptoms of a person’s negative affect”.

Rumination has been associated with psychological distress, since by “ruminating” we avoid processing negative experiences and emotions. As such, rumination acts as an avoidant emotional regulation strategy that will hinder, even block, the effective resolution of our problems (Nolen-Hoeksema et al., cit. in Senderey, 2017).

Rumination maintains anguish because the focus is on what went wrong rather than on what can be done to make things better. We enter a vicious circle that exacerbates the distress, hence the biased thoughts and the escape, blocking or avoidance behaviors.

Concern is a problem-solving effort. However, because the problem is not current but hypothetical or beyond our control, it becomes useless and counterproductive if it does not activate us.

Concern is a verbal linguistic attempt to prevent future feared events . It offers us questions such as: “What would happen if…” (Harvey et al. 2009; cit. in Senderey, 2017).

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Some long-term consequences of dysfunctional perfectionist behavior

Going further, Shafran, Cooper, and Fairburn (2002) present some examples of the long-term consequences of the pattern of dysfunctional perfectionist behaviors: on an emotional level, exhaustion, moodiness, depression; on a social level, isolation; on a physiological level, insomnia; on a cognitive level , alterations in attention, concentration and memory; on a behavioural level, repeated checks on work or tasks that result in a high level of time loss or procrastination.

Because of this, it is not surprising to find studies that show this pattern as a vulnerability factor for even more acute and sustained problems such as depression, social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder or eating disorders, with authors even investigating its relationship with suicide (Kiamanesh, Dieserud, Dyregrov, and Haavind, 2015., cit. in Amores Hernández, 2017).

The importance of psychological flexibility

In functional or adaptive perfectionist behavior, we are much more flexible in assessing whether we have achieved our goals and therefore experience less stress if we do not.

On the contrary, one of the notorious characteristics of the harmful is precisely the rigidity. Some studies have shown that adaptive perfectionism is positively related to life satisfaction and negatively related to depression, hopelessness, and avoidant and anxious adult attachment styles. (Gnilka, Ashby, and Noble, 2013).

The impact on our self-esteem and self-acceptance

Weak self-esteem is the result of an overall negative view of oneself that is constantly reinforced by the difficulty of reaching the desired level of aspiration, competence and ability.

The basis of change is to accept and by accepting the limitations is how we can overcome them. Self-acceptance is considered protective of self-esteem and is independent of achievement (Burns, 1983., cit. in Senderey, 2017).

So, is perfectionism useless and harmful?

As we commented at the beginning, all this information is of little help if we don’t land it on a case by case basis, and it is from here that we will be able to assess whether it is being useful to you or not.

From the contextual behavioral therapies, the first thing we are going to do is what we call an idiographic functional analysis. That is, roughly, we will start by asking you what you understand by perfectionism, so that we find those behaviors or series of behaviors (types of response) to certain situations.

That is to say, to operate all this in relation to that context and your life history. For example, you could say to me: “I worry a lot about the details”, “I have an atrocious fear of failing”, “I criticize myself constantly”, “I tend to put things off”, etc. So far, as you can see, these descriptions are very general, but we are beginning to see elements such as intensity, frequency and duration, which we take into account.

Now, surely this doesn’t happen in all contexts, let’s find out in which situations or domains of your life . And from here one of the most crucial questions is whether this prevents or facilitates you from reaching your goals and making your life richer.

You see, worrying about the details, being afraid of failing, putting things off, etc, is a natural thing, I’d even say it’s great if it helps you take action and prepare a speech better, or that putting off a coffee with your friends to prepare your thesis can be quite useful, right?

Going further, even the high or low intensity, frequency and duration of some behaviors are quite functional in certain contexts. That is, if you work as an engineer or an administrator, it’s a plus. The key, then, will be to establish what you want in your life, what makes it meaningful, and from there to assess whether those behaviors are leading you in the long run towards that path, and if not, to work to find other ways to get there.

Bibliographic references:

  • Amores Hernández, A. (2017). Perfectionism, fear of failure and depressive symptoms. Repository of the Pontifical University of Comillas. Retrieved from https://repositorio.comillas.edu/jspui/bitstream/11531/23179/1/TFM000700.pdf
  • Gnilka, P. B., Ashby, J. S., and Noble, C. M. (2013). Adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism as mediators of adult attachment styles and depression, hopelessness, and life satisfaction. Journal Of Counseling & Development; 91(1), 78-86.
  • Senderey, E. (2017). Mindfulness and Group Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to Address Problematic Perfectionism. Athens Journal of Social Sciences; 4 (1), 49-66.
  • Shafran, R., Cooper, Z., and Fairburn, C. G. (2002). Clinical perfectionism: A cognitive-behavioural analysis. Behaviour Research and Therapy; 40(7), 773-791.