Kottman, Terry "Perfectionistic
Children and Adolescents: Implications for School Counselors." Professional
School Counseling, Feb2000, Vol. 3 Issue 3, p182, 7p
Describes research findings related to perfectionism in adults and adaptive
and maladaptive traits of perfectionism manifested by
children and adolescents. Recognition of the positive components of the
perfectionism; Relation to higher self-esteem; Suggestions
for intervention strategies to capitalize on the adaptive aspects of perfectionism;
Remediation of the maladaptive aspects.
PERFECTIONISTIC CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOL COUNSELORS
Perfectionistic children and adolescents
are easy to recognize. Teachers and parents describe these children and
adolescents as having incredibly neat desks, giving
up recess to finish some assignment
or project, complaining any time they have a collaborative group assignment,
starting an art project seven times to get it "just
right," being disappointed when
they do not get perfect papers in school, and so forth (Thompson &
Rudolph, 2000).
Traditionally, school personnel and
family members have expressed concern about perfectionistic students, based
on the assumption that perfectionism is a
one-dimensional, negative personality
trait that should be eradicated. While some of the behaviors manifested
in the quest for perfection can be self-defeating,
many perfectionistic behaviors (like
having a neat desk, turning in neat work, caring about school work, being
dedicated and focused) are actually academically
and socially adaptive. The authors
believe that it is essential to the well-being and happiness of these children
and adolescents that teachers, counselors, and
parents learn to recognize and acknowledge
the positive components of perfectionism. It is also important to learn
to intervene with these students in ways that
do not undermine the productive
or helpful aspects of perfectionism (i.e., high standards and the need
for order), but that do address the problematic aspects of
perfectionism (i.e., anxiety, extreme
self-criticism, and extreme criticism of others).
In this article, the authors (a)
describe the current research findings related to perfectionism in adults,
(b) summarize the recent literature regarding perfectionism
in children and adolescents, and
(c) describe adaptive and maladaptive traits of perfectionism as manifested
in children and adolescents. The authors also make
suggestions for intervention strategies
for helping children and adolescents learn to capitalize on the adaptive
aspects of perfectionism and remediate the
maladaptive aspects of perfectionism.
Recent Research On Perfectionism
Perfectionism in Adults
Historically, mental health professionals
working with adults have conceptualized perfectionism as a unidimensional
and negative or maladaptive character trait
(e.g., Blatt, 1995; Burns, 1980;
Hollender, 1965). In thinking about clients who described themselves or
were described by others as perfectionistic, counselors
have usually assumed that perfectionism
was at least part (and maybe the bulk) of the problem. Because of this
negative, unidimensional perception, most
interventions with clients who "admitted"
being perfectionistic have traditionally revolved around "curing" the client
of his or her perfectionism (Burns, 1980).
Research based on this way of viewing
perfectionism (Blatt, 1995; Flett, Hewitt, Blankstein, & O'Brien, 1991;
Hewitt & Flett, 1990) has supported the premise
that perfectionism has a negative
impact on perfectionists. This approach seems to ignore the possibility
that "being a perfectionist could well be a good thing if
it means having high standards,
for high standards ultimately lead to high achievement" (Winner, 1996,
p. 215).
Several recent empirical investigations
into perfectionism in adults have lent credence to this more positive interpretation
of perfectionism. This research has
supported the concept of a multidimensional
model which allows for the idea that some aspects of perfectionism can
prove to be helpful, rather than harmful, to
clients.
Slaney, Mobley, Trippi, Ashby, and
Johnson (1996) developed a measure designed to assess both the positive
and negative aspects of perfectionism. They
contended that, while experiencing
extreme distress when one's performance did not match one's standards might
be destructive and unhealthy, the holding of
high personal standards and a desire
for order were not necessarily negative. The results from a study by Rice,
Ashby, and Slaney (1997) supported the
distinction between adaptive and
maladaptive dimensions of perfectionism. The authors of this study found
that one duster of perfectionism dimensions
(including high personal standards
and orderliness) were related to higher self-esteem and lower levels of
depression. However, a second cluster of perfectionism
dimensions (including concern over
mistakes and self-criticism) were related to increased depression and decreased
self-esteem. Using this instrument, several
authors have found differences between
adaptive and maladaptive perfectionists on levels of inferiority (Ashby
& Kottman, 1996); levels of career
decision-making self-efficacy (Ashby,
Bieschke, & Slaney, 1997); levels of general self-efficacy and social
self-efficacy (Ashby, LoCicero, Kottman, Schoen, &
Honsell, 1998); and levels of locus
of control by powerful others (Periassamy, Ashby, & LoCicero, 1999).
Perfectionism in Children and Adolescents
There has been little empirical research
in the psychological literature exploring perfectionism in children and
adolescents. Many of the articles in this area have
focused on perfectionism as a difficulty
for gifted children (Kline & Short, 1991a, 1991b; LoCicero, Ashby,
& Periasamy, in press; Parker, 1997; Roberts &
Lovett, 1994) or for children with
problems such as eating and mood disorders (Steiger, Leung, Puentes-Newman,
& Gottheil, 1992), negative cognitive beliefs
(Robins & Hinkley, 1989), and
depression (Leon, Kendall, & Garber, 1980).
In most of the quantitative studies
conducted with gifted subjects, the researchers used a negative, unidimensional
definition of perfectionism (e.g., Kline &
Short, 1991a, 1991b). With this
definition of perfectionism, Kline and Short (1991b) found that gifted
girls in grades 9 through 12 reported having significantly
higher perfectionism than peers
who were less gifted but found no difference on perfectionism between gifted
adolescent boys and peers who were less gifted
(Kline & Short, 1991a). Using
Hewitt and Flett's (1991) multidimensional model of perfectionism, Roberts
and Lovett (1994) reported that gifted children
demonstrated higher levels of self-oriented
perfectionism relative to their nongifted peers. Measuring with Multidimensional
Perfectionism Scale, Parker (1997)
found that the majority of gifted
children in his sample were likely to fit into the healthy perfectionistic
type (41.7%), with 25.5% falling into the dysfunctional
perfectionistic type, and 32.8%
falling into the nonperfectionistic type. In a study by LoCicero et al.
(in press), the researchers used the Almost Perfect Scale to
discover that gifted middle school
children had higher levels of adaptive perfectionism but lower levels of
maladaptive perfectionism than a comparison group
of nongifted students.
In other empirical studies of perfectionism
in children and adolescents, the researchers used a unidimensional, negative
characterization of perfectionistic
behavior and found that children
and adolescents with higher levels of pathology tend to fit this description
of perfectionism. Steiger et al. (1992) examined
perfectionism as one aspect of the
psycho-social profile of adolescent girls with eating and mood disorders
and found that girls who manifest eating and mood
symptoms have elevated levels of
perfectionism as compared with girls who do not manifest these symptoms.
Robins and Hinkley (1989) and Leon et al.
(1980) found that depression in
children and adolescents was related to high levels of perfectionism. None
of these researchers used an instrument based on a
multidimensional model which may
have predetermined their confirmation that perfectionism tends to be maladaptive.
Empirical studies using a multidimensional
measure of perfectionists are rare. LoCicero et al. (in press) provided
support for making a distinction among adaptive
perfectionists, maladaptive perfectionists,
and nonperfectionists at the middle school level in the area of basic lifestyle
approaches. They found that adaptive
perfectionists had significantly
lower propensity toward being willing to shape their behavior to fit perceived
social-environmental cues than maladaptive
perfectionists and nonperfectionists.
They also found that adaptive perfectionists were likely to manifest significantly
a higher developed sense of belonging and
the desire to cooperate, level of
comfort with receiving recognition and/or praise for their accomplishments,
and a need to strive to do things well than
nonperfectionists.
Adaptive and Maladaptive Perfectionism
In order to help teachers, students,
and parents recognize these two distinct "faces" of perfectionism, school
counselors must consider how children and
adolescents can express the adaptive
and the maladaptive characteristics of perfectionism in the school setting.
The differences between adaptive and
maladaptive perfectionists are typified
by the ways they handle their high standards and need for order Adaptive
perfectionists use these traits constructively,
as a spur to better performance.
They are not overly anxious about their high standards and do not feel
discouraged when they do not attain their goals--they
simply vow to work harder and smarter
Maladaptive perfectionists, on the other hand, are extremely anxious about
meeting their own elevated expectations and
routinely feel discouraged when
they are not perfect.
The school counselor must also remember
that both of these dimensions occur on a continuum from mild to severe.
Even the potentially adaptive behaviors can
become negative when taken to extremes.
Conversely, the potentially maladaptive behaviors such as concern over
mistakes and self-criticism can be helpful to
children when they are manifested
in moderation and used constructively.
Adaptive Manifestations
In schools, children and adolescents
can manifest high standards and a need for order in several different adaptive
ways. Adaptively perfectionistic students will
usually express high personal standards
in academic, athletic, and interpersonal endeavors. They will expect themselves
to perform to the best of their ability and
may express concern or disappointment
when they do not feel that they have fulfilled their own potential or achieved
their personal goals. Perfectionistic
students quite frequently also have
high expectations for others--counting on their peers and their teachers
to live up to the standards that they set for them. As
long as high personal standards
do not become unreasonable or unrealistic, and setbacks or failures to
meet standards do not result in extremely harsh
self-criticism, these factors will
not cause a problem for students; they will simply provide strong motivation.
The same is true of the other positive
attribute in the adaptive cluster of perfectionistic traits--need for order.
Adaptively perfectionistic students will manifest
this behavior by turning in neat
and well-organized assignments, maintaining tidy work areas and lockers,
and suggesting that other students and teachers work to
make classrooms and other areas
in the school building organized and orderly places to be. Organization
of materials, strong study habits, dearly defined
schedules, and so forth will be
important to students who manifest a high need for order They will expect
others to value structure and organization as well.
Again, it is important to monitor
the intensity and pervasiveness of perfectionistic students' need for order
so that it does not interfere with their healthy
functioning, but rather serves as
a positive force in their lives.
Maladaptive Manifestations
In schools, extreme concern over
mistakes and self-criticism can be debilitating to students. Concern over
mistakes can prevent students from trying to
successfully complete written assignments.
Rather than risk a less than perfect paper, maladaptively perfectionistic
students simply may not do their work.
They might rather have a zero in
the grade book than have a chance of any score less than 100%. Because
these students are unwilling to make mistakes, they
frequently refuse to participate
in class discussions, based on their fear that they could volunteer an
incorrect answer and be embarrassed. When maladjusted
perfectionists turn in assignments
and participate in class discussion with less than perfect results, they
may react with feelings of extreme sadness,
disappointment, and/or anger at
themselves, at their peers, or at teachers. These students have exaggerated
reactions to mistakes. One or two errors seem like a
complete failure to them. They tend
to demonstrate an all-or-nothing attitude toward the accuracy of their
school work and their participation in class
discussions, sports, and other extracurricular
experiences.
Sometimes these children and adolescents
blame others for any self-perceived mistake or failure, suggesting that
it is someone else's fault that their performance
did not live up to their standards.
Usually, however, maladaptive perfectionists are extremely self-critical.
They have a tendency to focus exclusively on their
negative qualities and on anything
that they perceive to be less than perfect about themselves (e.g., their
performance at school, athletic functions, and/or
extracurricular activities; their
appearance; their social interactions; and so forth). Because they are
so difficult to satisfy and so quick to criticize themselves,
students manifesting maladaptively
perfectionistic traits may fall prey to such maladies as eating disorders,
depression, and suicidal ideation.
Intervention Suggestions for School Counselors
School counselors can provide assistance
to perfectionistic children and adolescents through two distinct functions--consulting
and counseling. In consulting
with parents and teachers, counselors
can use psychoeducational strategies for providing information to optimize
interactions with perfectionistic students. In
counseling, counselors can help
perfectionistic children and adolescents learn to capitalize on adaptive
tendencies involved in perfectionism and to more
effectively cope with maladaptive
tendencies.
Consultation with Parents and Teachers
In the consultation mode, school
counselors will want to educate adults who come into contact with children
about the multidimensional aspects of
perfectionism. They can also make
suggestions to parents and teachers for methods of reinforcing the positive
aspects of perfectionism and addressing the
negative aspects of perfectionism.
The first avenue of consulting with
parents and teachers should involve disseminating information dispelling
the myth of the unidimensional nature of
perfectionism and educating them
about the different aspects of perfectionism from a multidimensional perspective.
By providing workshops and discussion
groups in the form of parent forums
and teacher in-services, the school counselor can lead adults and toward
a more balanced viewpoint and away from the idea
that perfectionism is necessarily
a negative phenomenon that leads to impaired mental health in children
and adolescents. In emphasizing the potential positive
aspects of perfectionism, the school
counselor can help parents and teachers begin to explore new ways of conceptualizing
the perfectionistic traits of their
children. It is essential in this
psychoeducational process to stress that holding high standards and having
a need for order can be helpful behaviors if they are not
taken to an extreme and if the student
does not experience anxiety related to the discrepancy between his or her
standards and real-life circumstances.
In making suggestions to parents
and teachers about interventions for helping perfectionistic children and
adolescents gain more positive coping strategies for
school, the counselor should emphasize
the need for careful observation of students in order to determine which
of the characteristics of perfectionism are in
force. The counselor would base
suggestions for intervention on an assessment of the balance of these factors.
Students who demonstrate predominantly
the positive aspects of perfectionism. Concerned adults may not need to
intervene with this student in any way.
The only suggestion the counselor
might give is for the parent(s) and/or teacher(s) to encourage the child
to continue in this pattern of attitude and behavior and
to watch for possible incursions
of anxiety about the discrepancy between the high standards and actual
performance.
Students who demonstrate some characteristics
of both adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism. The counselor may make
suggestions to involved adults
about helping the student change
some of his or her attitudes or beliefs. One method that could work with
these children and adolescents would be to help them
move toward more realistically assessing
their own ability to live up to their standards. This would involve examining
their past performance and deciding what
is truly possible in terms of performance
in the future. Sometimes it is helpful to the student to actually make
a chart or graph his or her past expectations
compared with the actual performance,
in order to have a visual representation of the discrepancy.
Another method used successfully
with these children is teaching them relaxation techniques, so that they
can feel more in control of their anxiety and reduce
their need to avoid making mistakes
(Adderholdt-Elliott, 1987). It would also be helpful to work with these
students on changing some of their self-talk, so that
they would reduce their tendency
toward extreme self-criticism (Antony & Swinson, 1998).
Students who demonstrate predominantly
the characteristics of maladaptive perfectionism. These students are at
high risk for depression, eating
disorders, suicidal ideation, and
other psychological problems that affect their entire lives, not just performance
and adjustment in school. In consulting with the
adults who come into contact with
children at this extreme of the perfectionism continuum, it would probably
be appropriate for the school counselor to refer
them for work with a mental health
professional on the underlying issues related to these difficulties.
Counseling
While direct counseling services
can be invaluable to perfectionistic students, it is essential for the
school counselor to do the same type of initial assessment of
the balance of adaptive and maladaptive
factors involved.
Students who demonstrate predominantly
positive behaviors related to perfectionism. The counselor will probably
only provide very limited counseling
services, focused on encouragement
for continued high standards and reasonable self-criticism. These students
may be excellent candidates for serving as models
to other students, especially those
who have a tendency toward the less constructive side of perfectionism
and those who have a tendency toward
underachievement. It would be important
to include these students in a group as models (Muro & Kottman, 1995),
if the counselor were going to do a group for
maladaptive perfectionists.
Students who demonstrate both positive
and negative attitudes and behaviors related to perfectionism. The counselor
will probably want to provide
some kind of on-going counseling
services either in a group or in individual sessions. The counselor can
help these children learn to separate behavior and
performance from personhood. For
instance, the counselor can help students see themselves as "A" people
even if all of their grades are not perfect As. Through
the use of puppets, metaphors, role
plays, and other active counseling strategies, the counselor can help students
explore how maladaptive perfectionistic
attitudes and behaviors can limit
the scope of their scholastic and extracurricular opportunities, resulting
in reduced life satisfaction. These counseling techniques
can also be used to reinforce the
positive aspects of appropriately high standards and order. Some examples
of strategies that are appropriate with these children
include:
• Use puppets to model ways for students
to appropriately set high standards, but not get overly self-critical at
times when their performance does not meet
those standards.
• Tell a story about a giraffe that tries to reach the highest leaves, but tells himself that he did his best when he cannot reach them.
• Give students scenarios in which
they must decide what kinds of standards to set for themselves (including
academic, social, and athletic situations). Have them
role-play or brainstorm how they
would handle the situation if they did meet those standards and if they
did not meet them.
Depending on the counselor's theoretical orientation and the age of the student, the following techniques could also be helpful in working with this population.
• "Spitting in the soup," an Adlerian
technique in which the counselor uses humor in pointing out the client's
self-defeating attitudes and behavior (Kottman,
1995). When the student starts to
become anxious or overly self-critical, the counselor could make gentle
comments suggesting that these behaviors are not
particularly helpful.
• Using the Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy technique of disputing the irrational beliefs underlying the perceived
need for perfection (Vernon, 1999). The
client might believe that he or
she is worthless if his or her behavior is less than perfect or that the
discrepancy between his or her standards and performance is a
catastrophe that will lead to ruin.
The counselor would point out how irrational these beliefs are and help
the client generate a new set of more rational adaptive
beliefs that would preserve a sense
of high standards without the self-defeating, irrational anxiety.
• "Prescribing the symptom," a paradoxical
intervention in which the counselor asks the child to continue to manifest
the maladaptive behaviors (Bloom, 1997).
The intervention can include requesting
that the child schedule certain times to be extremely self-critical or
anxious about his or her inability to performance up to
standards or to exaggerate the distress
caused by the discrepancy. The idea behind this intervention is that by
scheduling a time for the maladaptive behavior or
exaggerating it, the child begins
to acknowledge that he or she is in control of the behavior.
• Charting and evaluating the connection
between perfectionistic thought and behavior. This is a strategy the authors
have used with adolescents and young
adults. The counselor asks the client
to keep track of times when his or her perfectionism is working and when
it is self-defeating. The client records behaviors,
attitudes, and thought patterns
connected with each of these manifestations and then discusses the trends
with the counselor. Based on this discussion, they
develop a plan to increase the incidence
of positive perfectionistic patterns and decrease the negative (Antony
& Swinson, 1998).
• Exploring how the desire to be
perfect relates to parental expectations, family values, and the striving
for significance. This is a strategy that works well in play
form with elementary students and
in discussion form with middle school and high school students. With younger
students, the counselor can use a puppet or
doll to "interview" the child about
family interactions and expectations (Muro & Kottman, 1995). With older
students, the counselor introduces the topic of
parental and familial patterns,
values, and expectations in order to help them gain insight into how they
could be working to be perfect as a vehicle for pleasing
parents and living up to family
values. It is sometimes helpful to do some reality testing by suggesting
that students actually talk to their parents about what the
family standards are and what will
happen (both behaviorally and emotionally, if they do not live up to the
standards (Adderholdt & Elliott, 1987).
• Investigating how the drive for
perfection fulfills the student's needs. In Reality Therapy, the counselor
helps the client examine how he or she is getting
specific needs met by his or her
behavior (Thompson & Rudolph, 2000). The student is almost sure to
get some of his or her needs to be loved and accepted by
others met by having high standards
and by being organized and orderly. It might be helpful for the student
to explore whether he or she is getting some need met
through the maladaptive manifestations
of perfectionism. By making a new plan for getting needs met without resorting
to the negative aspects of
perfectionism, the student may make
a shift toward the adaptive aspects.
• Using a Transactional Analysis
(TA) model, examining the "script" that dictates that the client must always
be perfect and never make mistakes. In TA, the
counselor helps the client understand
that sometimes he or she is acting out a script that was formed during
the early years of development that is no longer
useful (Thompson & Rudolph,
2000). By exploring how the student determined that he or she must avoid
mistakes at all costs and helping in a reexamination of
these beliefs, the counselor may
be able to free the student from anxiety about discrepancies between his
or her standards and performance.
• Conducting groups for students
who see themselves, or are seen by others, as having some of the negative
characteristics of perfectionism. In a counseling
group, the counselor could offer
students with differing levels of adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism
the opportunity to model successful behaviors and
learn from the mistakes and successes
of others (Muro & Kottman, 1995).
Students who demonstrate predominantly
maladaptive attitudes and behaviors related to perfectionism. With these
students, it might be most
appropriate for the school counselor
do some crisis intervention. However, it may also be necessary to refer
these students for intensive, long-term work with a
mental health professional outside
the schools (Adderholdt-Elliott, 1987). This would be especially true with
those students who are on the far extreme of the
continuum and appear to be generally
debilitated by their perfectionism. With these students, the symptoms related
to the maladaptive aspects of their
perfectionism are so pervasive in
the children's lives, it would be next to impossible to confine intervention
to school-related concerns.
Conclusion
Recent researchers have suggested
that there are both adaptive and maladaptive components of perfectionism.
It is important for the school counselor not to
intervene to decrease levels of
perfectionism that are actually adaptive and contribute to the well-being
of the student. As Slaney and Ashby's (1996) research
with adult perfectionists suggests,
students may not want or need to give up their perfectionism. However,
they might profit from the reduction of those facets
of their perfectionism that are
maladaptive such as harsh self-criticism and fear of mistakes.
Note: Manuscript accepted by previous PSC editor Dr. Stanley Baker.
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