NYT
December 4, 2007
Mind
Unhappy? Self-Critical? Maybe You're Just a Perfectionist
By BENEDICT CAREY

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?

> "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

It's not natural at all! How can anything be perfect in this world?
You
might want to be a really good surgeon, but if you develop shaky
had syndrome hard luck mate. But, then again, so what! That's no
reason to be unhappy. I wish these very much less than perfect
psychologists would read Epictetus.Then maybe they would realise that
happiness need not, and should not, depend on any externals.