When Your Perfectionism is a Coping Strategy for Trauma
By Peggy Loo, PhD
The downsides of perfectionism
If you’ve ever struggled with perfectionism, you know that it can feel like a double-edged sword. It may be the reason for a lot of your successes, but it can also feel like a cage.
You might hold yourself to an incredibly high standard at your job and be well respected for it, but struggle with work-life balance. Maybe you try to be the perfect (insert role here: friend, partner, student, professional, parent), but keeping it together all the time is exhausting. Perhaps you tell yourself being accountable is a good thing, but that means you’re devastated when you make mistakes or fall short of anything less than perfect the first time. Maybe you want a great relationship or deep friendships, but you tend to fixate or get thrown off by every perceivable flaw or curveball, so you often end up feeling deeply alone.
As you can see, there are many sides to perfectionism. One side can look great on the outside, even push you towards being great. However, the other side, if we’re not mindful, can be quite costly. Unhelpful perfectionism has been defined as “the overdependence of self-evaluation on the determined pursuit (and achievement) of self-imposed, personally demanding standards of performance…despite the occurrence of adverse consequences” (Shafran et al, 2002). In other words, when your self-worth completely relies on meeting high standards, even when this paradigm affects you negatively. For many perfectionists, this can mean holding onto unrealistic expectations of themselves despite chronic stress and burnout, self-criticism, a strain on relationships, and anxiety or depression.
Another side of perfectionism
I’ve found this definition of perfectionism helpful for those who are seeking support to change their thought patterns or beliefs about success and failure. However, as a psychologist that specializes in perfectionism and trauma, this definition is limited. Let me explain why.
What causes us to become perfectionists?
Have you ever wondered why you struggle with perfectionism? For some, exacting parents or being in a highly competitive school or work environment can mean you learned that being the best, or perfect - was the way to be seen as successful. If your parents immigrated to give you the chance at a better life - your successes aren’t just your own, but a part of moving the next generation forward. Research supports that perfectionistic attitudes and behaviors are often learned and reinforced.
Trauma and the development of perfectionism
An aspect of perfectionism that hasn’t gotten as much attention is the connection between traumatic experiences and the development of perfectionism (Chen et al., 2019; Ko et al., 2019). Lately, I’ve been reflecting with my therapy patients on the ways that their perfectionistic patterns may be connected to past trauma. And more specifically, how their perfectionistic patterns may have emerged as a strategy to cope with the painful effects of trauma.
Five ways that your perfectionism may be helping you cope with trauma
Here are a five examples of how your perfectionism may be a coping skill for traumatic stress:
1. Perfectionism helps you regain a sense of control and structure in response to the chaos and powerlessness of trauma.
By definition, trauma is an experience that overwhelms our capacity to cope - physically, emotionally, and mentally, leaving us feeling deeply powerless and dysregulated. Our sense of control and personal agency is challenged in a core way - because we couldn’t prevent/stop/change something terrible from happening.
In contrast, setting highly specific expectations is a choice and it orients our thoughts, energy, and actions. This can feel deeply grounding after the instability of any traumatic experience. For better or worse, since perfectionistic standards are often idealistic and unrealistic - pursuing them provides life direction in an otherwise unpredictable world. You can be a perfectionist in any environment and with any new endeavor - there’s always a new goal and bar to reach. High standards often come with measurable outcomes (like positive feedback or getting the promotion) which creates a sense of structure, rules, and predictability. Perfectionism can be a way to feel in control and establish order in response to the chaos and uncertainty that characterizes traumatic experiences.
2. Perfectionism can seem like a way to combat shame or “fix” feelings of defectiveness or helplessness that are a direct result of trauma.
It feels rewarding to achieve something you set your mind to. It’s a natural dopamine hit and a healthy response to reaching a personal goal. Sometimes the more challenging or hard-earned the achievement, the better it can feel - you see effort and intention pay off, and a win reminds you that you’re a capable human.
Regardless of what you experienced, a key symptom of traumatic stress is negative feelings about yourself and internalized guilt or shame. You can feel defective, unwanted, or less than others - even though that’s not true. Sometimes having perfectionistic expectations of yourself can be a way to “fix” what you think is wrong about yourself. Exceeding expectations and objective success may be a way you’re trying to challenge a deeply rooted sense of shame or self-loathing. Sometimes this can also look like a hyperfocus on self-improvement or personal growth.
The truth is, most of us dislike sitting with our emotional pain - and when it comes to trauma it’s even more natural to want to avoid any reminders of it. It can be easy to sidestep addressing what feels bad at its source and instead try to repair it through other feel-good experiences like succeeding. Unfortunately, the good feelings are often short-lived.
3. Perfectionism can be a protective strategy to avoid feared consequences.
If your traumatic experiences involved serious negative consequences as a direct result of not meeting expectations, becoming or seeming perfect may have been a way for you to protect yourself from more physical danger or threat, vulnerability, or social rejection. In this case, perfectionism has become a learned anticipatory behavior in response to more negative reinforcement or punishment. Perfectionism becomes associated with securing safety. This can also be the case for systemic level oppression such as racial trauma, sexism, or transphobia where people anticipate painful social consequences and even physical danger if they act in ways deemed unacceptable by those part of the powerful majority.
4. Perfectionism can be a way to elicit love and acceptance from people that otherwise neglect or dismiss your needs.
Instead of avoiding punishment or unwanted consequences, sometimes perfectionism can be a relational strategy to gain approval and care if you learned that affection was conditional on high achievement. While you may not have been punished for not achieving, for those who have experienced chronic neglect from parents or caregivers - presenting as perfect may have been the only way to get fundamental attachment and emotional needs met. This can look like being the perfect or good child, people pleasing, or going along with whatever is expected of you for connection and affirmation.
5. Perfectionism can be a way to keep others at a safe distance.
One of the common effects of trauma is social isolation or having difficulty creating or sustaining close relationships with others. Especially if your traumatic experiences happened in the context of relationships with people who were supposed to love or protect you but failed - it can be hard to let people in or be vulnerable - or you may always feel afraid of relationships abruptly changing or people leaving. Sometimes having perfectionistic expectations of the people around you can be a way of rejecting others to stay safe. It can be a way to prevent yourself from having to be vulnerable, experience “messy” emotions, or the normal awkward dance of new connections or relationships.
Making the connection between your trauma & your perfectionism
As you can see from these examples, while perfectionism may be about the way you set expectations and learning to become more flexible or self-compassionate - it may be deeply rooted in much more.
If you recognize some of your own personal experiences in these examples, what can you do?
1. Get curious about your perfectionism.
Instead of going along with whatever your perfectionism asks of you without question, start noticing it and observing how it’s showing up in one area of your life. Before trying to make any changes, let yourself get curious about the purpose or underlying motivation in that moment. You can ask yourself “What am I hoping to get from this?” or “What am I worried will happen if I don’t do this perfectly?” or “What feelings come up when this isn’t perfect - and if the feelings had words what would it say?” Try and non-judgmentally notice some of the emotions, narratives, or even physical sensations that may come up with your perfectionism - and jot them down.
2. Respond with self-kindness.
If your perfectionism was a response to painful life experiences or traumatic events, choose to respond to yourself with compassion, gentleness, and patience. You may have tried to leave the past in the past and it may be hard to be open to the possibility that the effects of trauma are still with you today. Or ironically, sometimes we can be perfectionistic about changing our perfectionism! Understand that this was a way for you to cope with pain and overwhelm as best as you could (which helped you survive)- even if there may be aspects of your perfectionism that aren’t working for you today.
3. Consider therapy for perfectionism with a trauma therapist.
If you’ve tried to “let go” of your perfectionism with limited success in therapy, there may be something more to explore. Many popular approaches to addressing unhelpful perfectionism have to do with challenging cognitive biases in the way you set unrealistic goals or practicing self-compassion in the face of mistakes or failures. This can be incredibly helpful for some - but if perfectionism is a way you’ve found to regain control, combat an enduring sense of shame or guilt, or obtain acceptance from others during moments of deep pain or helplessness - trying to reframe goal-setting can only go so far. Find a therapist who specializes in trauma and perfectionism, or ask your therapist to explore the potential connection between the two as a new topic.
Sometimes we’re used to expecting so much from ourselves that it’s hard to imagine life any other way. While it’s wonderful to achieve and set big goals, sometimes our approach or our reasons for doing so stem from unresolved, painful experiences or memories. If that’s the case for you, you’re not alone and you don’t need to figure it out by yourself. Our therapists at Manhattan Therapy Collective are trained in helping adults seeking support for perfectionism and trauma using a range of evidence based, relational, and somatic, or body-based therapies. Reach out today and schedule a free 15-minute consultation to learn more - we’d love to connect.
About the Author: Peggy Loo, PhD is the founding director and clinical supervisor at Manhattan Therapy Collective. She has a special interest in helping adults who have experienced chronic emotional neglect safely connect with their emotional selves with curiosity and kindness.
Additional sources & citations:
Chen, C., Hewitt, P. L., & Flett, G. L. (2019). Adverse childhood experiences and multidimensional perfectionism in young adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 146, 53-57.
Ko, A., Hewitt, P. L., Cox, D., Flett, G. L., & Chen, C. (2019). Adverse parenting and perfectionism: A test of the mediating effects of attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, and perceived defectiveness. Personality and Individual Differences, 150, 109474.
Shafran, R., Cooper, Z., & Fairburn, C. G. (2002). Clinical perfectionism: a cognitive-behavioural analysis. Behaviour research and therapy, 40(7), 773–791.