Youth perfectionism: Too much of a good thing
EXPERT ANALYSIS FROM THE ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION CONFERENCE 2017
Treatment tips
After spending considerable time establishing rapport with a perfectionist youth, Dr. Ledley and Dr. Siqueland emphasize three key messages:
1. While on the surface your perfectionist strategy makes sense, enabling you to bask in positive feedback from teachers, coaches, friends, and in some cases your parents, it simply can’t be kept up long term.
“To the ones who really want to go to college and med school, I just say, ‘It’s not going to work there. You’ll not survive college. Or maybe college, but certainly not med school. So are you going to fix it now or fix it later? If you want med school as a goal, let’s help you get there,’ ” Dr. Siqueland said.
2. Therapy is not about changing your values.
“They fear that, if they don’t push and sacrifice, they’re going to be average, or even a slacker – and slacker might be worse than average,” Dr. Siqueland continued.
“We tell them it’s OK to have a drive for excellence, to go after your dream, and to take pride in good work well done. These are your values, and that’s great. We are not in the business of turning you into a slacker,” Dr. Ledley added.
3. Perfectionism takes away choices.
Therapy is all about helping you to live your life rather than having anxiety order you around. You can learn to have freedom, fun, choice, and sleep while in most cases doing as well as or better than before on your grades.
For clinicians who are inexperienced in addressing perfectionism in youth, Dr. Ledley and Dr. Siqueland recommended as a useful primer “The Perfectionism Workbook for Teens” (Oakland, Calif.: New Harbinger Publications, 2016).
They reported having no financial conflicts of interest.
