Perfectionism can drive achievement but may maintain anxiety, depression, shame, procrastination, avoidance, and burnout.
CognitionBehaviourAffect+1
Negative core beliefs bias attention and meaning-making, often linking early experience to current automatic thoughts, affect, and behaviour.
CognitionDevelopmentalAttachment+1
Costly rigidity around mistakes, evaluation and self-worth, rather than high standards alone. Perfectionistic concerns show stronger associations with depression, anxiety and OCD symptoms than strivings, but this does not make strivings universally benign or establish causation.
Broad meanings about self, others or the world that may shape appraisals across situations. Distinguish the broader belief, a conditional rule and a situation-specific automatic thought. WA CCI materials provide teaching language for these distinctions.
Candidate maintaining process, to be tested in the individual case: demanding standard → threat of falling short → checking, overwork or delay → temporary relief → the standard remains untested or becomes more rigid.
Candidate maintaining process, to be tested in the individual case: event → familiar global meaning → affect and coping → selective attention or consequences that seem to confirm the meaning. This loop should be tied to examples, not assumed from a diagnostic label.
All-or-nothing standards · Difficulty finishing
Global self-statements · Persistent themes across situations
“If it is not perfect, it is a failure”
“I am not good enough”
High standard -> threat of mistake -> overcontrol or avoidance -> temporary relief -> standard remains rigid
Trigger -> negative meaning -> affect -> coping behaviour -> apparent confirmation of belief
Reduce the link between worth and flawless performance.
Work at the level of meaning, not only surface thoughts.
High standards are flexible, values-based, and not associated with significant distress or impairment.
The thought is situation-specific and changes with new evidence.