Therapy Styles for Perfectionism & Anxiety

Perfectionists tend to be anxious because they have unrelenting standards and expectations and fear making mistakes. Their anxiety can stem from these expectations, as they are often worried about not meeting their own standards or the standards of others. Additionally, perfectionists may engage in all-or-nothing thinking, believing that anything less than perfect is a failure, which can further contribute to their anxiety.

There are several therapy styles that work towards treating perfectionism and anxiety, such as CBT, ACT, and RO DBT. Learn about the different styles below:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can help address and challenge the negative thought patterns and behaviors associated with perfectionism. Clients start to recognize and identify the negative thought patterns that contribute to perfectionism, such as all-or-nothing thinking or catastrophizing. Clients then learn to challenge and replace untrue beliefs about perfectionism with more realistic and balanced thoughts. By setting more realistic and achievable goals, they can reduce the pressure to be perfect in every aspect of their lives. CBT helps clients challenge their thoughts by testing the consequences of not following through on beliefs about imperfection. CBT can help individuals cultivate self-compassion and self-acceptance, allowing them to be kinder to themselves because they realize thoughts do not always equate to truth.

By working through these strategies with a trained therapist, individuals struggling with perfectionism can gradually change their mindset and behaviors to lead a more balanced and fulfilling life.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) can help individuals with perfectionism by teaching them psychological flexibility concepts to accept unpleasant emotions and thoughts and focus on mindful, value-driven behaviors. Clients learn to acknowledge that perfection is unattainable and mistakes are a natural part of the learning process. Mindfulness techniques to help clients to stay present and observe perfectionist thoughts with awareness. This connects to defusion skills, such as learning to notice unhelpful thoughts and create space for them, rather than pushing them away or avoiding them. ACT helps clients understand how values differ from rigid rules or inflexible standards. Clients identify their values and focus on aligning their actions with those values rather than striving for perfection. Self-compassion is interwoven into the components of ACT through acceptance, mindfulness, defusion and values.

Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO DBT) can help with perfectionism by helping clients identify maladaptive social signals that contributing to emotional loneliness and implementing behavioral strategies to feel safe around others and in new situations. RO DBT helps individuals develop more flexibility in their thinking and behavior, letting go of rigid perfectionistic standards. The therapy focuses on cultivating healthy self-doubt, called self-enquiry. This helps clients to reduce avoidance of feedback and negative emotions because they can learn from new information and emotions. RO DBT educates clients on mindfulness concepts, such as fatalistic and fixed mindsets, and guides them towards flexible mind approaches instead. With the emphasis on the importance of social connections and relationships, which can help perfectionists shift their focus from achieving perfection to building meaningful connections with others. Lastly, instead of inhibiting emotions and their expressions, the therapy encourages adaptive emotional expression and vulnerability. RO DBT can help perfectionists learn to accept and work through their emotions instead of striving for perfection as a way to avoid uncomfortable feelings.