Women’s Health Week - September 2023
‘I’m definitely a perfectionist’.
‘I think I have perfectionistic tendencies’.
‘I’m a procrastinator and a perfectionist – someday I’m gonna be perfect!’
‘I’ve been pursuing perfect for so long I feel like nothing I do is ever right’.
‘I can only hear and see someone’s disapproval of what I’ve not done completely right, even the praise sounds wrong somehow’.
‘I’ve had this intense fear of failure since I was a kid’.
‘You may think I have done well, but I know I should have done better…if I’d just…’
Photo by Istvan Hernek on Unsplash
We may loosely talk and even joke about this elusive concept out loud with each other sometimes, but the number of times we kick around the ‘should’s’ and reset our bar of ‘good enough’ in our own heads may be the necessary place to shine a light on the deep impact of perfectionism for a little while.
So, with some space and a little light…
What is perfectionism?
What is it doing to your brain?
And can you change your relationship with the construct of perfect to feel and function better?
Photo by Tabitha Turner on Unsplash
In less than a third of a second google will provide you with 221 million results when you search for the definition of perfectionism. Influential and extensive researchers in this field, Dr Gordon L. Flett and Dr Paul L. Hewitt, come up often within these results, and they view perfectionism as complex and multidimensional. The Perfectionism and Psychopathology Lab at the University of British Columbia, that these key minds are a part of, put forward this understanding:
‘Perfectionism is a personality style that involves the requirement or need to be or appear to be perfect. It involves a strong need for perfection (not excellence or high standards), critical and stringent evaluations of oneself or others, not experiencing reward in successful endeavours, self-punishment, fear of failure, and rigid maintenance of perfectionistic expectations in the face of challenges or failure. Although there are several different conceptualizations of perfectionism that exist in the literature, most researchers and clinicians would agree that perfectionism is multidimensional and that it is complex. It is not a disorder per se, but rather a core vulnerability factor that produces problems for adults, adolescents, and children.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses (DSM-5) is a health professional reference book of mental health and brain-related conditions and disorders. The group responsible for the writing, editing, reviewing, and publishing of this globally utilised book is the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Health Professionals and researchers around the world continue to raise their thoughts and voices as to how perfectionism is defined and where it is placed in this reference book.
In other research, and within the self-help space, you may find ‘The Nirvana Fallacy’ or ‘The Perfect Solution Fallacy’, false dichotomies and so on, where you start to then see more globally how the human relationship with ‘perfect’ permeates our lives socially, economically and even politically.
Recovering perfectionist and former professional athlete, Charly Haversat, at a TED talk back in 2015…rhetorically asks, early in the talk, a big IF? - ‘If, we all know that perfection is an illusion’ and then she answers – she argues that we don’t, she says - ‘I argue that we think the opposite. We think that perfect is not only possible, it’s probable. And that by fixating on that perfect end state we have lost our ability to negotiate incremental gains’. Effectively, that we may be losing our ability to see how much we’ve actually achieved in the smaller stages of how we grow. Seems our relationship with the construct of perfect may be conflicting, somewhat confusing, and it impacts not just ourselves, but our communities too.
There are many sides to the idea of perfectionism, some of these sides are potentially helpful and some are perhaps harmful. Professors of perfectionism, Hewitt and Flett, suggest perfectionism is made up of three elements:
self-oriented perfectionism – where we set ourselves a high standard and criticise ourselves when we feel we haven’t reached this high bar.
other-oriented perfectionism – where we may set unrealistically high standards for others, and
socially prescribed perfectionism – where our internal chatter may also involve thinking that others hold unrealistically high expectations of us too.
In an article from Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, that opens with the great title: To err is (perfectly) human, the Australian and German researchers outline some key brain differences. They inform us that individuals with high self-oriented perfectionism can show more neural activity (using fMRI technologies) in the medial-frontal gyrus after they make mistakes with a specific task. This area of our brains has many jobs including: cognitive functions to do with our insight, identity and personality; executive functions; and emotional self-regulation.
When we zoom in even more closely to our brains, we may see through sophisticated QEEG Brain Scan technology, that there can be over-activity in this frontal area of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). This is a brain area that has jobs like: thinking about our feelings; detecting errors; making decisions; solving problems; empathy; impulse control; mood regulation; and some of our nervous system and hormonal responses. It’s powerful to know that we can not only zoom in to see this brain activity, but that today we can zoom in to retrain these specific brain areas too.
QEEG directed Neurofeedback training is a proven, targeted and effective way to retrain specific brain waves in specific areas of your brain when it comes to perfectionism and other related brain-based challenges. Neurofeedback can beneficially change the way parts of your brain that are involved in the feeling, thinking and doing parts of perfectionism are operating.
With all of this understanding we can then see how maladaptive perfectionism can be a shared factor to consider with many mental health and brain-based disorders. Potentially perfectionism may lead to, or be a part of, the unique tapestry of lived experiences for individuals also navigating their difficulties with: anxiety; reduced creativity; more rigid thinking; ADHD; procrastination; avoidance of some activities altogether; depression; fatigue; stress. There is even evidence to suggest that perfectionism can negatively impact the experience of chronic pain.
We encourage all women to subscribe to Jean Haile’s Women’s Health Week and ‘grow your knowledge’ about your complex selves this year. The resources are not just stunningly beautiful and engaging, they are a distillation of the work of this incredible organisation, and its partners, ambassadors and champions. Their article on self-kindness and perfectionism includes helpful strategies you may find a place for as you go about your day today.
If this article has resonated with you, and you feel you might benefit from some support and further brain health assessment with truly personalised treatment plans, please explore and find the best fit for you. You can watch, scroll, read, call or email, to find out more today.
About the author - Ms. Emily Goss (Occupational Therapist, Senior Clinician, The Perth Brain Centre).