Clinical literature on the treatment of perfectionism suggests that perfectionists are not exactly easy to treat.  In fact, “perfectionism is associated with a relatively poor working alliance between the perfectionist and the therapist” (Flett and Hewitt, 2002, p. 24).

Sorotzkin (1998), while treating adolescent perfectionists, writes about how perfectionism gets in the way of treatment progress:  “as [perfectionists] become more knowledgeable about psychological issues, they may also become perfectionistic in the process of therapy, by trying to become the perfect emotional specimen (i.e., by not having any anxieties, conflicts, or fears)” (p. 92).

Let’s face it: as a perfectionist, you can present a formidable challenge. 

As a perfectionist, you’ve been living the life of the Absurd.  Having uncritically embraced the common-place notion that perfection is unattainable, you have been after a paradoxical goal of trying to achieve that which, by definition, is impossible to achieve.  And in so doing, you have been committing an existential suicide of mostly doing, doing, and doing and hardly ever being, of seldom living long enough in the present moment to realize that you have been caught up in an ever-tightening feedback loop of self-imposed expectations.

As a perfectionist, you have been living a life of abstraction, in a never-ceasing comparison of the real and the ideal, tragically oblivious to the rather concrete and undeniable fact that you are, have been and always will be doing your very practical best; that you are, have been and always will be (as long as you are alive) perfectly imperfect. 

Perfectionism isn’t cheap.  In fact, it is existentially unaffordable.  Here’s a review of these costs and of the possible ways of cutting them, with the help of an existential self-rehab.

Perfectionism is a Psychological Liability

Flett and Hewitt (2002) write: “perfectionists are more likely than nonperfectionists to experience various kinds of stress” (p. 257) and list four perfectionism-specific mechanisms that contribute to and exacerbate stress:

Perfectionist is Not Obsessed with Perfection

Non-perfectionists frequently misunderstand perfectionists as being obsessed with perfection.  The very term “perfectionist” implies an obsession with perfection, an obsessive pursuit of perfection.  But, strangely, it is not so!  Perfectionism, more often than not, isn’t about the pursuit of perfection per se but about the psychological, relational and existential dividends of being perfect.

It helps to understand the words involved.

A bit of etymology trivia first (from etymonline.com):

Oriental (adjective): from Latin word orientalis “of the east.”

Occidental (adjective): from Latin word occidentalis “western.”

Now, on with the essay…

OCPD – an Occidental Personality Disorder?

While perfectionism is not, per se, a diagnostic category, it is an essential feature of the so-called Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD, not to be confused with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD).  OCPD is usually defined as “preoccupation with perfectionism, mental and interpersonal control, and orderliness at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency” (Pfohl & Blum, 1991).

Given the fact that perfectionism, the central feature of OCPD, seems “endemic” in the West, should we then, perhaps, rethink perfectionism as a strictly Western/Occidental issue?  Should we view OCPD as Occidental Compulsive Personality Disorder?

It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Somewhere on a continuum between normality and pathology there is a point at which an otherwise culturally normal behavior acquires a problematic degree.

In other words, there is a point at which the given behavior results in functional impairment.  The difficulty of establishing whether your particular perfectionism has met the diagnostic threshold of pathology has to do with the specific cultural norms of the society in which you reside and function.  

You know how there are all these rehab “farms” for addictions of every kind?  What if there was an Existential Rehab?

Here’s a curriculum I’d propose for such a rehab to leverage existentially vibrant living:

As I see it there are 4 types of perfectionism:

• Neurotic Perfectionism
• Narcissistic Perfectionism
• Principled (Puritanical) Perfectionism
• Hyper-Attentive (Compensatory) Perfectionism

The first three of these are essentially “software” problems.  The solution to “software-type” perfectionism is “re-programming.”  The Hyper-Attentive type of perfectionism is a “hardware” (brain) issue.   

The West is in a constant war with reality: perpetually dissatisfied with what is, we are desperately trying to perfect it.

This one and only reality seems never enough and we feel ever entitled to more: bigger houses, bigger (hybrid) cars, bigger (Anime-sized) eyes, bigger market shares, bigger tax deductions, bigger incomes, bigger bonuses, bigger breasts, bigger penises, bigger egos and bigger wars. We have been culturally programmed to endlessly optimize and supersize, and to constantly perfect ourselves and everyone else around us. Our appetite for more has been kindled to the level of insatiability. No wonder we feel psychologically starved and existentially empty.

We have been taught to chase the unattainable: to be more than what we are at any given point in time. We are a culture of idealistically naive strivers unable to be content with what is if only for a moment.

“The Buddha lived in India five centuries before Jesus and almost two centuries before Aristotle.  The first step in his belief system was to break through the black-and-white world of words, pierce the bivalent veil and see the world as it is, see it filled with ‘contradictions,’ with things and not-things, with roses that are both red and not-red, with A and not-A.  You find this […] theme in Eastern belief systems old and new, from Lao-tze’s Taoism to the modern Zen in Japan.  Either-or versus contradiction.  A or not-A versus A and not-A.   Aristotle versus the Buddha.” (B. Kosko)

Seeing yourself as either perfect or imperfect is black-and-white thinking.  Time to update your understanding of perfection from the standard Western, psychologically toxic, dualistic view of perfection to a more self-accepting, psychologically healthier, nondual view of perfection: you are neither perfect nor imperfect or, if you prefer, you are perfectly imperfect.  Same thingless thing!