How perfectionism affects your (mental) health

Sure, saying you're a perfectionist may sound good in a job interview, but does striving for perfection make you feel good about yourself? Studies show that constantly chasing the specter of perfection may seriously harm your mental health and well-being. In this (imperfect) article, we explore the dangers of aiming to be perfect.

 

Before starting to write this article, I stared at my computer screen for around half an hour feeling overwhelmed by the countless open tabs in my browser, each of them showcasing a crucial piece of research that I absolutely had to include in this comprehensive feature.

Luckily, I've undergone enough therapy in my life to be able to recognize this paralyzing feeling for what it is: toxic perfectionism.

I know myself and how this process goes: I start by fabricating the expectation that this article has to be perfectly thorough and encompass everything that's ever been written on perfectionism.

Then, I forget the fact that I have an upper limit of words for this article, a limited number of hours that I can work on it, and generally that I am bound by the limitations that are inherent to being human.

Soon enough, unrealistic expectations loom over me so heavily that I can't get started at all, which, in turn, only fuels a harsh inner voice that berates me for procrastinating or makes me feel like an imposter for being a paid writer who doesn't write.

Over the years, I've trained myself to recognize this pattern and break it at critical points, enabling me to deliver some form of work, not get fired, and feel relatively good about myself. For others, however, tackling the sabotaging feeling of perfectionism may prove more difficult.

In this (imperfect) Spotlight feature, we zoom in on perfectionism, how it affects our mental and physical health, and some of the things that we can do about it.

Experts tend to define perfectionism as "a combination of excessively high personal standards and overly critical self-evaluations." However, there are more nuances to this definition.

Gordon Flett and Paul Hewitt are two leading authorities in the field of perfectionism, both of whom have studied this topic for decades. Flett is a professor in the Faculty of Health at York University in Ontario, Canada, and Hewitt is currently a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia (UBC), also in Canada.

Together, the two psychologists defined the three main facets of perfectionism in a landmark study they published almost 3 decades ago. They say that there is "self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism, and socially prescribed perfectionism."

The following video, from Prof. Hewitt's Perfectionism and Psychopathology Lab at UBC, explains these three "flavors" of perfectionism and suggests ways in which we can prevent their harmful effects.

 

How perfectionism affects our overall health

Perfectionism can severely impact our mental and physical health. In a recent study conducted by Thomas Curran, a lecturer in the Department for Health at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom, and Andrew P. Hill, of York St. John University, also in the U.K., the authors explain that socially prescribed perfectionism is the "most debilitating" of the three forms.

 

In socially prescribed perfectionism, "individuals believe their social context is excessively demanding, that others judge them harshly, and that they must display perfection to secure approval."

Anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation are only some of the mental health problems that specialists have repeatedly linked with this form of perfectionism.

One older study, for example, found that over half of people who died by suicide were described by their loved ones as "perfectionists." Another study found that more than 70 percent of young people who died by suicide were in the habit of creating "exceedingly high" expectations of themselves.

Toxic perfectionism seems to hit young people particularly hard. According to recent estimates, almost 30 percent of undergraduate students experience symptoms of depression, and perfectionism has been widely associated with these symptoms.

These trends have been rising over the past few decades, particularly in English-speaking cultures. Curran and Hill studied more than 40,000 American, Canadian, and British college students and found that in 1989–2016, the proportion of people who exhibited traits of perfectionism rose by up to 33 percent.

As Curran and Hill point out, "self-oriented perfectionism" — which occurs when "individuals attach irrational importance to being perfect, hold unrealistic expectations of themselves, and are punitive in their self-evaluations" — is linked with clinical depression, eating disorders, and premature death among college students and young people.