Keys to detect the usefulness of perfectionism in our lives

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

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

And it is that, from the outset, 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 on many occasions the long-term aversive consequences correlate with the exhaustion, the feeling of continuous failure, isolation and many other problems that we will see continuation.

To begin this article, which is undoubtedly very summarized, I would like to clarify that we start from information very theoretical, nomothetic (that is to say very general), and for practical purposes, although it is necessary, it is not enough. For all this information to be useful we have to apply it on a case-by-case basis. Hold on a little bit, we'll talk about this at the end.

• It may interest you: "Perfectionist Personality: The Disadvantages of Perfectionism"

Functional perfectionism vs dysfunctional perfectionism

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

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

To this latter pattern of perfectionistic behavior under aversive control, is often called unhealthy, dysfunctional or maladaptive perfectionism, and it is a transdiagnostic factor for many important psychological problems.

The main defining characteristics of a dysfunctional perfectionist behavior pattern are as follows:

• Need for control
• Rigidity of thought and behavior
• Hypersensitivity to the opinions of others
• Excessive addiction to rumination and worry
• Excessive self-criticism
• Avoidance of new situations
• Fear to fail
• All or nothing polarized thinking style
• Procrastination

In fact, many authors maintain a difference regarding the adaptability / maladjustment of perfectionist behavior. Stoeber, Harris and Moon (2007), for example, distinguish based on the variables: "perfectionist goals" and "perfectionist concerns".

The perfectionist (healthy) behavior pattern is governed by high goals and low worries. In the unhealthy, 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 approach (1991) to explain its maintenance, we already know that this is through 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 check if these or other needs are the ones that would have this reinforcement function.

Rumination and excessive worry

Nolen-Hoeksema and her collaborators (2008) defined rumination as "repetitive thinking about the causes, consequences and symptoms of a person's negative affect".

The rumination It has been associated with psychological discomfort, since by “rummaging” we avoid processing negative experiences and emotions. As such, rumination acts as an avoidant emotional regulation strategy that will make it difficult, even block, the effective solution of our problems (Nolen-Hoeksema et al., Cit. in Senderey, 2017).

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

Worry 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.

Worry 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).

Some long-term consequences of dysfunctional perfectionist behaviors

Moving a bit further, Shafran, Cooper, and Fairburn (2002) present some examples of the long-term consequences of dysfunctional perfectionist behavior patterns: emotionally, exhaustion, bad mood, depression; at the social level, isolation; at the physiological level, insomnia; cognitively, alterations in attention, concentration and memory; at the behavioral level, repeated verifications of work or tasks that report a high loss of time or procrastination.

Due to this, it is not surprising to find studies that show this pattern as a vulnerability factor for still problems. more acute and sustained over time such as depression, social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder or disorders of the diet, and there are even authors who have investigated its relationship with suicide (Kiamanesh, Dieserud, Dyregrov, & Haavind, 2015., cit. in Amores Hernández, 2017).

The importance of psychological flexibility

In functional or adaptive perfectionist behavior, we are much more flexible when it comes to assess whether we have achieved our goals and therefore experience less stress if we do not we achieved.

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

The impact on our self-esteem and self-acceptance

A weak self esteem it is the result of a negative global opinion of oneself that is constantly reinforced by the difficulty of reaching the desired level of aspiration, competence and ability.

The basis of change is accepting and accepting 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 mentioned at the beginning, all this information is of little help if we do not land it on a case-by-case basis, and it is from here that we can assess whether it is being useful or not.

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

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

Now, it surely doesn't happen to you in all contexts, we are going to 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 reaching your goals and makes your life richer.

You see, worrying about details, being afraid of failing, procrastinating, etc, is something natural, I would even say that it is great if this helps you to take action and better prepare a speech, or that postponing a coffee with friends in order to prepare your thesis can be quite useful, truth?

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 administrative, it is a plus. The key, then, will be to establish what you want in your life, what makes it meaningful and from there assess whether those behaviors are leading you down that path in the long run, and if not, work to find other ways to get there to him.

Bibliographic references:

• Amores Hernández, A. (2017). Perfectionism, fear of failure and depressive symptoms. Comillas Pontifical University Repository. Recovered 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 Behavioral 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 – behavioral analysis. Behavior Research and Therapy; 40(7), 773-791.