To develop, improve, become better than we are… At first glance, this is a desirable goal. However, striving for the ideal can make us feel unbearable anxiety. Reflections of psychologist Tatyana Zhadan.
“I feel like something is wrong with me. I’m afraid that I might have a serious illness… Every morning I wake up with anxiety. The heart is healthy, but it’s jumping out, I’m worried about it. I began to feel pressure: not critical, but what if it gets worse? And all the tests show that the body is normal, ”complained 35-year-old businessman Nikita.
A typical picture of an anxiety disorder. My task was to identify its cause. At the next session, Nikita dropped: “I always want the maximum, I want more than I could before. If I feel that I can’t do something, I tense up. ”
You can want more in different ways: you can strive for excellent results and remain a healthy person at the same time, or you can rush to unattainable heights and “get” into a neurosis (which happened to Nikita).
At the heart of the pursuit of excellence, the ideal
Another client of mine with an anxiety disorder, 29-year-old Anatoly, regularly experienced panic attacks: a feeling of lack of air, a strong heartbeat, “stars” before his eyes. At night, he woke up from fear: he was afraid to die from a heart attack, although, according to tests, his heart was healthy.
Anatoly’s work required great responsibility and communication with a large number of people, with the media — he worked in the PR department of a large company. One of the bosses was especially authoritative for him, and Anatoly highly valued his opinion and attitude towards himself.
One day, a batch of promotional brochures didn’t arrive from print on time, and the business presentation had to be done without them. The chief expressed his extreme displeasure at this occasion. That same night, Anatoly had a panic attack for the first time, then these cases began to repeat.
Close cases, close symptoms, close causes — they are based on the desire for perfection, for the ideal. But if in the case of Nikita it turned into perfectionism, then in Anatoly it remained “only” an idealization. What is the difference between them and why did this happen?
Two perfectionisms
Perfectionism (from the English word “perfect”, which means “ideal, perfect, absolute, impeccable”) is a thirst for excellence, high personal standards, the desire to bring the results of any of your activities to the highest standards.
Perfectionists believe that perfection is achievable and live in constant striving to achieve it. In psychology, perfectionism is divided into healthy and pathological (neurotic).
Healthy Perfectionists in their activities they are guided by the hope of success, they easily get down to business, take into account their own resources and limitations, put forward realistic goals. This allows them to enjoy their strength, improve the quality of their activities and achieve excellent results.
Healthy perfectionists may experience a slight degree of excitement or excitement in the course of their work. They are focused on their own resources and how to get the job done right. They are able to feel deep satisfaction with what they have achieved and, on the basis of this, increase their self-esteem.
Neurotic Perfectionists the fear of failure pushes them to work. Fearing all sorts of mistakes and failures, they often cannot get down to business and put off starting it (procrastinate). They have extremely high expectations of themselves and therefore experience anxiety, shame and guilt.
When carrying out work, they focus on their own shortcomings and thoughts about a possible mistake. Even if a common-sense job is done admirably, neurotic perfectionists are not satisfied.
Nikita was a perfectionist of the neurotic type.
Idealization in psychology, a defense mechanism of the psyche is called, which makes us see another or ourselves better than it really is — more ideal. Such a person makes high, but not exorbitant demands on himself or others — they are moderate.
However, in Anatoly’s case, idealization was combined with a high degree of responsibility. Presenting himself better than he really is, he did not meet these requirements, which caused severe feelings.
Reasons and help
The reasons for both the perfectionism and idealization of these clients lie in childhood, in the parenting styles that were used in the family. Perfectionism is born from authoritarian upbringing and conniving hyper-protection, and is also provoked by modern society, which imposes perfectionism as the norm and provokes idealization of oneself in search of protection from social depreciation.
In both cases, my goal was to help clients bring their self-esteem and aspirations closer to a more realistic level.
There are many steps here:
• We work with beliefs (such as: “I must be the best, otherwise I do not deserve love and respect”, “no one but me can do the job right”, “I must please everyone”).
• We learn not to scold ourselves for mistakes, but to analyze them.
• We begin to notice and recognize our achievements: for those who strive for the ideal, it is not easy to stop devaluing their not the biggest achievements, but the slightest mistake plunges them into despair.
We also understand what requirements of others we are ready to accept and what we are not, instead of trying to meet all the expectations.
All of these steps reduce anxiety. The idealization of oneself and others disappears, and neurotic perfectionism gives way to a healthy one.