Perfectionism: a Self-Defeating Mechanism

Perfectionism

• Do you feel like what you accomplish is never quite good enough?
• Do you often put off turning in papers or projects, waiting to get them just right?
• Do you feel you must give more than 100 percent on everything you do or else you will be mediocre or even a failure?

If so, rather than simply working toward success, you may in fact be trying to be perfect. Perfectionism refers to a set of self-defeating thoughts and behaviors aimed at reaching excessively high unrealistic goals. Perfectionism is often mistakenly seen in our society as desirable or even necessary for success. However, recent studies have shown that perfectionistic attitudes actually interfere with success. The desire to be perfect can both rob you of a sense of personal satisfaction and cause you to fail to achieve as much as people who have more realistic strivings.

Causes of Perfectionism

If you are a perfectionist, it is likely that you learned early in life that other people valued you because of how much you accomplished or achieved. As a result you may have learned to value yourself only on the basis of other people’s approval. Thus your self-esteem may have come to be based primarily on external standards. This can leave you vulnerable and excessively sensitive to the opinions and criticism of others. In attempting to protect yourself from such criticism, you may decide that being perfect is your only defense.

A number of the following negative feelings, thoughts, and beliefs may be associated with perfectionism:

• Fear of failure. Perfectionists often equate failure to achieve their goals with a lack of personal worth or value.
• Fear of making mistakes. Perfectionists often equate mistakes with failure. In orienting their lives around avoiding mistakes, perfectionists miss opportunities to learn and grow.
• Fear of disapproval. If they let others see their flaws, perfectionists often fear that they will no longer be accepted. Trying to be perfect is a way of trying to protect themselves from criticism, rejection, and disapproval.
• All-or-none thinking. Perfectionists frequently believe that they are worthless if their accomplishments are not perfect. Perfectionists have difficulty seeing situations in perspective. For example, a straight “A” student who receives a “B” might believe, “I am a total failure.”
• Overemphasis on “shoulds.” Perfectionists’ lives are often structured by an endless list of “shoulds” that serve as rigid rules for how their lives must be led. With such an overemphasis on shoulds, perfectionists rarely take into account their own wants and desires.
• Believing that others are easily successful. Perfectionists tend to perceive others as achieving success with a minimum of effort, few errors, emotional stress, and maximum self-confidence. At the same time, perfectionists view their own efforts as unending and forever inadequate.

The Vicious Cycle of Perfectionism

Perfectionistic attitudes set in motion a vicious cycle. First, perfectionists set unreachable goals. Second, they fail to meet these goals because the goals were impossible to begin with. Failure to reach them was thus inevitable. Third, the constant pressure to achieve perfection and the inevitable chronic failure reduce productivity and effectiveness. Fourth, this cycle leads perfectionists to be self-critical and self-blaming which results in lower self-esteem. It may also lead to anxiety and depression.

At this point perfectionists may give up completely on their goals and set different goals thinking, “This time if only I try harder I will succeed.” Such thinking sets the entire cycle in motion again. This vicious cycle can be illustrated by looking at a way in which perfectionists often deal with interpersonal relationships. Perfectionists tend to anticipate or fear disapproval and rejection from those around them. Given such fear, perfectionists may react defensively to criticism and in doing so frustrate and alienate others.

 Without realizing it, perfectionists may also apply their unrealistically high standards to others, becoming critical and demanding of them. Furthermore, perfectionists may avoid letting others see their mistakes, not realizing that self-disclosure allows others to perceive them as more human and thus more likeable. Because of this vicious cycle perfectionists often have difficulty being close to people and therefore have less than satisfactory interpersonal relationships.

Healthy Striving

Healthy goal setting and striving are quite different from the self-defeating process of perfectionism. Healthy strivers tend to set goals based on their own wants and desires rather than primarily in response to external expectations. Their goals are usually just one step beyond what they have already accomplished. In other words, their goals are realistic, internal, and potentially attainable. Healthy strivers take pleasure in the process of pursuing the task at hand rather than focusing only on the end result. When they experience disapproval or failure, their reactions are generally limited to specific situations rather than generalized to their entire self-worth.

What to do About Perfectionism

The first step in changing from perfectionistic attitudes to healthy striving is to realize that perfectionism is undesirable. Perfection is an illusion that is unattainable. The next step is to challenge the self-defeating thoughts and behaviors that fuel perfectionism. Some of the following strategies may help:

• Set realistic and reachable goals based on your own wants and needs and what you have accomplished in the past. This will enable you to achieve and also will lead to a greater sense of self-esteem.
• Set subsequent goals in a sequential manner. As you reach a goal, set your next goal one level beyond your present level of accomplishment.
• Experiment with your standards for success. Choose any activity and instead of aiming for 100 percent, try for 90 percent, 80 percent, or even 60 percent success. This will help you to realize that the world does not end when you are not perfect.
• Focus on the process of doing an activity not just on the end result. Evaluate your success not only in terms of what you accomplished but also in terms of how much you enjoyed the task. Recognize that there can be value in the process of pursuing a goal.
• Use feelings of anxiety and depression as opportunities to ask yourself, “Have I set up impossible expectations for myself in this situation?”
• Confront the fears that may be behind your perfectionism by asking yourself, “What am I afraid of? What is the worst thing that could happen?”
• Recognize that many positive things can only be learned by making mistakes. When you make a mistake ask,
• “What can I learn from this experience?” More specifically, think of a recent mistake you have made and list all the things you can learn from it.
• Avoid all-or-none thinking in relation to your goals. Learn to discriminate the tasks you want to give high priority to from those tasks that are less important to you. On less important tasks, choose to put forth less effort. Once you have tried these suggestions, you are likely to realize that perfectionism is not a helpful or necessary influence in your life. There are alternative ways to think that are more beneficial. Not only are you likely to achieve more without your perfectionism, but you will feel better about yourself in the process.

Personality Disorder: Internet Use Disorder

The use of the internet is pervasive in our culture. So much that the American Psychiatric Association is recommending further research on the condition called “Internet Use Disorder” in the upcoming diagnostic manual DSM V.

The disorder primarily refers to Internet gaming, however, it does include the criteria of “withdrawal symptoms when internet is taken away.” Sound familiar?

Addiction is not the only mental health condition that the internet can trigger. The other one is depression.

A recent article in the Scientific American suggests that people who rapidly move around on dozens of websites, engaging in fleeting contact, are most likely to get depressed:

“Peer-to-peer file sharing, heavy emailing and chatting online, and a tendency to quickly switch between multiple websites and other online resources all predict a greater propensity to experience symptoms of depression. Quickly switching between websites may reflect anhedonia (a decreased ability to experience emotions), as people desperately seek for emotional stimulation. Similarly, excessive emailing and chatting may signify a relative lack of strong face-to-face relationships, as people strive to maintain contact either with faraway friends or new people met online.”

It is the depth of emotion that is seen as critical for normal affect. The enormous amount of distraction that’s offered online seduces us into paying less and less attention towards a single topic — or people, for that matter.


Another phenomenon is loneliness.We do sit in front of our laptops mostly by ourselves, of course. There may be other family members around, but we tend to not engage much with them when the computer is on.
Even when talking with friends online, like on Facebook, there is a strange kind of loneliness that arises out of peer pressure, as an interesting reflection in hearty magazine point out: “The loss of a person’s ability to think differently than the people surrounding him is, in and of itself, a mode of INsanity that has everything to do with loneliness.”

The dynamic gives a whole new meaning to the term “alone in the crowd.”

Modern man as isolated, intimidated, disconnected and constantly distracted — not exactly an appealing vision of the future.

Inner self: Let's be kind to ourselves?

It’s bad enough feeling stressed, anxious or depressed. But what worsens those feelings of pain is that we can’t just accept what it going on inside our minds. We have to criticize ourselves for being afraid, angry, jealous and so on. That’s what really brings us down: the inner critic.


But that’s usually not the end of the story. We start to feel that we should’ve known they weren’t happy; that it’s something we did wrong, and it’s solely our responsibility. We should’ve done this to prevent their leaving, and that to find a quick replacement.

We come down hard on ourselves and cannot possibly forgive that we can’t read other people’s minds, or potentially made a mistake. It’s unacceptable that we’re human, and humans can’t always know.

What’s needed in order to silence the self-critical voices in out head is unconditional positive regard.  We need to look at ourselves with unconditional positive regard and say to ourselves “Don’t worry so much”... or “what I did or said at that time was right, so I will accept my reality and now just move on” simple... Nobody is perfect!!

The same way we don't like when people are critical towards us, let's not accept too mcuh criticism from ourselves towards ourselves... If we can leave ourselves alone, our whole self-image will improve. We cut out stress and fear, we sleep better, have better relationships and so on.


If you are a forgiving person, start with yourself. Give yourself a break. You’ll feel better in no time.

Narcissism: be or not to be...

We all have personality traits and our own ways of dealing with the universe however it all becomes a problem when they become maladaptive and interfere with our ability to function socially and occupationally... It is difficult to pinpoint our personalities: some may be depressive, some obsessive compulsive, some schizoid, some histrionic and others narcissistic…

Narcissism is a normal part of child hood development and let’s agree: the child is the centre of attention, love, hope (from the parents). It is a defence mechanism used in any normal upbringing, where the child will have unconditional and constant positive attention from the mother; the child will be supported and praised, no matter how small their achievements are. Don’t get me wrong, it is all good as it helps to boost the self-esteem. However, some children may be constantly praised for more than they should be, regardless how small their achievements are. However, too much of anything is not good… Up to this point, Narcissism is healthy, however, many children grow up and go into adulthood still thinking and feeling they are still the focus of attention and expecting the same treatment from others hence becoming maladaptive behaviour.

Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by people who display grandiosity, envy and an inability to have empathy (put themselves in another person's shoes).

For instance, let’s take a look at the character Patrick Bateman from the American Psycho movie. He suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder and it was ALL about him! He craved and needed constant attention… positive attention to be more correct. He needed affirmation that he was the most beautiful, most intelligent man at work, socially and in love.

Patrick is all about creating appearances, but not necessarily physical ones, that gain admiration. It involves manipulating others with a well-honed subtlety that matches his absolute callousness. He beats people up, exaggerates situations, lie with no sense of shame and hurl threats upon anyone who criticizes him, all to make himself feel like an autocrat, but he only do things when he thinks he'll get away with them.

Envy is another element of this trait. So, if one possesses something materially or psychologically that a person with narcissistic personality disorder doesn't have, they will become envious. Now, you're not going to hear them say, "Oh, I'm so jealous of you." What you'll actually see, the manifestation of that envy, will be a devaluation, "Oh well, that's because she's a brown-noser; that's why she got that promotion." So, anytime they feel that envy coming up, they will immediately have to devalue it.

Like most of people with this trait, they may seek revenge if you don't agree with them and may lash out on people in a moment of rage…or even kill you if you stand between them and their objective. 

Like Patrick, there is Brian Blackwell and Diane Downs who also suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. 

We don’t know very much about Downs’ childhood other than she had been allegedly sexually abused by her dad. Narcissistic personality disorder might be developed as the result of neglect or abuse and trauma inflicted by parents or other authority figures during childhood. The disorder becomes more evident by early adulthood. Downs’ narcissism and need to be the focus of attention was evident in the film “Small Sacrifices”. On 19th May 1983 she shot her 3 children in attempt to get rid of them as they posed an obstacle between her and her boyfriend.

Brian Blackwell also killed his parents on 25^th July 2004 in Liverpool, England, as his parents challenged Brian’s intention to go to America. Brian was also excessively pampered (his mum would still bathe and dress him at the age of 17) by his parents who also needed for him to be talented and special, maybe to maintain their own self-esteem. His fantasy life he created had collapsed and Brian could not accept this: he WAS going on holiday and intended to spend a large amount of money and because his parents wouldn’t allow this, it caused an outburst of rage which resulted in his parents’ death.

The above examples are extreme cases of NPD, however they may help us understand their mindset. Like other Personality Disorders, the person must be seen by a Doctor or Psychologist for a proper diagnosis.

In my view Psychotherapy may help, however keeping them in treatment can be an issue and rather challenging as they may devalue the therapist because of the envy involved in this situation.

What do you think?

Costa Alecrim - Dip Hyp

MetaMind Therapies