Unhappy? Self-Critical? Maybe You’re Just a Perfectionist

Just about any sports movie, airport paperback or motivational
tape delivers a few boilerplate rules for success. Believe in
yourself. Don’t take no for an answer. Never quit. Don’t accept
second best.

Above all, be true to yourself.

It’s hard to argue with those maxims. They seem self-evident — if
not written into the Constitution, then at least part of the
cultural water supply that irrigates everything from halftime
speeches to corporate lectures to SAT coaching classes.
Yet several recent studies stand as a warning against taking the
platitudes of achievement too seriously. The new research focuses
on a familiar type, perfectionists, who panic or blow a fuse when
things don’t turn out just so. The findings not only confirm that
such purists are often at risk for mental distress — as Freud,
Alfred Adler and countless exasperated parents have long
predicted — but also suggest that perfectionism is a valuable
lens through which to understand a variety of seemingly unrelated
mental difficulties, from depression to compulsive behavior to
addiction.

Some researchers divide perfectionists into three types, based on
answers to standardized questionnaires: Self-oriented strivers
who struggle to live up to their high standards and appear to be
at risk of self-critical depression; outwardly focused zealots
who expect perfection from others, often ruining relationships;
and those desperate to live up to an ideal they’re convinced
others expect of them, a risk factor for suicidal thinking and
eating disorders.

“It’s natural for people to want to be perfect in a few things,
say in their job — being a good editor or surgeon depends on not
making mistakes,” said Gordon L. Flett, a psychology professor at
York University and an author of many of the studies. “It’s when
it generalizes to other areas of life, home life, appearance,
hobbies, that you begin to see real problems.”

Unlike people given psychiatric labels, however, perfectionists
neither battle stigma nor consider themselves to be somehow
dysfunctional. On the contrary, said Alice Provost, an employee
assistance counselor at the University of California, Davis, who
recently ran group therapy for staff members struggling with
perfectionist impulses. “They’re very proud of it,” she said.
“And the culture highly values and reinforces their attitudes.”
Consider a recent study by psychologists at Curtin University of
Technology in Australia, who found that the level of “all or
nothing” thinking predicted how well perfectionists navigated
their lives. The researchers had 252 participants fill out
questionnaires rating their level of agreement with 16 statements
like “I think of myself as either in control or out of control”
and “I either get on very well with people or not at all.”
The more strongly participants in the study thought in this
either-or fashion, the more likely they were to display the kind
of extreme perfectionism that can lead to mental health problems.
In short, these are people who not only swallow many of the
maxims for success but take them as absolutes. At some level they
know that it’s possible to succeed after falling short (build on
your mistakes: another boilerplate rule). The trouble is that
falling short still reeks of mediocrity; for them, to say
otherwise is to spin the result.

Never accept second best. Always be true to yourself.
The burden of perfectionist expectations is all too familiar to
anyone who has struggled to kick a bad habit. Break down just
once — have one smoke, one single drink — and at best it’s a
“slip.” At worst it’s a relapse, and more often it’s a fall off
the wagon: failure. And if you’ve already fallen, well, may as
well pour yourself two or three more.

This is why experts have long debated the wisdom of insisting on
abstinence as necessary in treating substance abuse. Most rehab
clinics are based on this principle: Either you’re clean or
you’re not; there’s no safe level of use. This approach has
unquestionably worked for millions of addicts, but if the studies
of perfectionists are any guide it has undermined the efforts of
many others.

Ms. Provost said those in her program at U.C. Davis often
displayed symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder — another
risk for perfectionists. They couldn’t bear a messy desk. They
found it nearly impossible to leave a job half-done, to do the
next day. Some put in ludicrously long hours redoing tasks,
chasing an ideal only they could see.

As an experiment, Ms. Provost had members of the group slack off
on purpose, against their every instinct. “This was mostly in the
context of work,” she said, “and they seem like small things,
because what some of them considered failure was what most people
would consider no big deal.”

Leave work on time. Don’t arrive early. Take all the breaks
allowed. Leave the desk a mess. Allow yourself a set number of
tries to finish a job; then turn in what you have.

“And then ask: Did you get punished? Did the university continue
to function? Are you happier?” Ms. Provost said. “They were
surprised that yes, everything continued to function, and the
things they were so worried about weren’t that crucial.”

The British have a saying that encourages people to show their
skills while mocking the universal fear of failure: Do your
worst.

If you can’t tolerate your worst, at least once in a while, how
true to yourself can you be?

By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: December 4, 2007

source: http://www.nytimes.com/