Understanding The Roots Of Perfectionism

by Liza Hinchey, LPC, NCC

Liza Hinchey is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in private practice at Trinity Family Counseling Center. Liza completed dual Master’s degrees in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and Art Therapy from Wayne State University, and works with individuals, families, and groups across a range of presenting issues.

Perfectionism can be a tricky cycle to break — after all, if you’re a perfectionist, on some level you probably feel like you’re getting results! Perfectionistic traits might feel useful in your career, your education, and even your relationships. Though there are surely a lot of downsides to these traits, perfectionism can be difficult to work through when we feel like it’s serving us in these ways.
 
The truth, though, is that it’s not perfectionism itself that’s helping us succeed — it’s the specific habits and behaviors that often come with it, like diligence, good time management, conscientiousness, or any other way of being that you relate to. And the good news is that these traits can and do exist without feelings of perfectionism. That’s because perfectionism isn’t rooted in diligence or conscientiousness or any of these useful habits that might seem related to it — perfectionism is rooted in self-criticism.
 
Our brains, whether it feels like it or not, are always trying to protect us on some level. When we’ve dealt with high levels of criticism from others, especially as children, one way our minds can try to adapt and protect us from the painful emotions of being criticized is to decide that our main goal will be to simply not give anyone anything to criticize. In other words, our brains decide that in order to feel safe, we need to be perfect.
 
The only flaw with this logic, of course, is that no one in the history of humanity has ever been (or will ever be) perfect. Unfortunately, the deeper levels of our brains that make these safety-related decisions can’t really process logic — so they miss this important fact. This is also the reason that trying to let go of perfectionism can be so anxiety-inducing — our brains now interpret not being perfect as a threat to our very safety. Because this pattern usually comes from experiencing high levels of criticism as a child, it then becomes common to experience a high level of self-criticism, as our minds try to “keep us perfect” and protect us from the painful emotions of being criticized by others. In other words, self-criticism becomes one of our main tools for self-protection. Once again, we can see the brain’s lack of logic — we might not be getting criticized as much by others now, but we are constantly criticizing ourselves! Because self-criticism is under our own brain’s control, however, our mind usually interprets it as less threatening than the chance that someone else will criticize us unexpectedly. Human minds do not like uncertainty. To put it simply, our minds may have solved one problem (keeping us safe) but created another (the pain of living with self-criticism).
 
So, if perfectionism occurs to protect us from the emotions associated with being criticized, the real key to working through perfectionism is not to avoid criticism at all cost by attacking ourselves — it’s to get comfortable with these difficult emotions. If we know and feel that we can cope with the full range of human emotions, even the tough or unpleasant ones, our brains won’t feel like they need to protect us so fiercely by trying to be perfect. There are healthy ways of coping with emotions like shame, embarrassment, sadness, anger, or any other feelings that come up for us when we’re being criticized — and learning these new ways of approaching emotions will, in the long run, give us a greater sense of safety and security than trying to reach the impossible goal of perfection. Plus, bonus! — You get to keep those useful habits like diligence and determination, only without the harmful self-criticism — and that’s the real recipe for thriving when it comes to your goals AND your well-being.

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