Attachment and Perfectionism
Where did my perfectionism come from?
To start to answer this question, we need to dig back a little to your early experiences, so hang with me for a minute. Consider Charlie, a baby who experiences a caregiver who is consistently warm and responsive to Charlie and her needs. Charlie goes through her day knowing what to expect minute by minute, and as such, can go and explore her world freely – to learn, socialize, and develop competencies – with the option to return to a secure base, her caregiver, when she feels threatened or just needs to check in.
There is a lot of evidence that this consistent and sensitive caregiving Charlie receives creates what psychologists call a “secure attachment” between the child and the caregiver. This relationship between Charlie and her caregiver forms a lifelong template for how she views herself and her relationships.
Charlie won the childhood lottery. A child who experiences their caregiver as consistently responsive is afforded sooo many positive psychological benefits – a strong sense of worthiness and confidence in themselves, better emotional regulation, social competence, comfort with intimacy, adaptability, and resilience to name a few.
An unsure world
Now consider MacKensie, who developed a very different internal model of herself and relationships. MacKensie’s caregiver was inconsistent with their responsiveness to her -sometimes they were supportive and warm, other times they weren’t. Sometimes they were intrusive in their child’s world.
Imagine what this does to MacKensie’s ability to explore her world – should I go or should I stay? I’m not really sure, because I can’t count on there being a safe spot to come back to. There’s an ambivalence. They crave their caregiver’s attention, yet push it away because it is unreliable. We call this an insecure attachment, or specifically, an “anxious ambivalent attachment.”
While Charlie won the childhood lottery, MacKensie operates from a bank account in the red. She is insecure in exploring her environment, which can negatively impact her learning and social development. Emotionally, she has a lower threshold for distress, shows more fear, and can act in an impulsive or helpless manner towards her caregivers. She likely works hard to please her caregivers. Over MacKensie’s lifetime, she is at greater risk for mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
As an adult, MacKensie will experience difficulties in her emotional, occupational, and social worlds. She will likely not be certain whether she is loved, worthy, or good enough. She may have difficulty in her intimate relationships, as MacKensie fears being alone, but also fears being rejected. MacKensie is uncertain whether others will recognize her needs, and whether she can trust others. Others view MacKensie as more anxious and hostile than Charlie. MacKensie is motivated to succeed in life, but with her poor coping skills, is likely to experience burnout.
Where does perfectionism fit in?
Our brains are fantastic “make sense of the world” machines. To make sense of “my needs are not met consistently,” your brain came up with the idea – ah, I must not be good enough, there must be something wrong with me. I know! I’ll become perfect - people will love and accept me then. I won’t be rejected if I’m perfect.
So, if MacKensie’s brain came up with this solution, she will move through the world listening and learning how to be “perfect.”
In school, she learns to be the perfectly behaved student, and to do x, y, z to achieve academic excellence;
Socially, she learns to have her appearance meet the ideal – clothes, make-up, hair, and acts as a chameleon to meet her friends’ expectations perfectly;
At home, MacKensie meets her caregivers’ expectations of her – and takes it to the extreme. Not just a clean room - but a perfect room all the time. I only do this sport/extra-curricular because I do it well, etc.
Criticism is crushing to MacKensie because it is perceived as a rejection of her, a confirmation of the hypothesis that she isn’t good enough, and that her efforts at perfection have failed.
As an adult, MacKensie carried this not helpful internal working model of herself and relationships. Through hard work in therapy, and a willingness to consider alternative views of herself, MacKensie can manage her perfectionism and learn to feel cherished in relationships.
Kira Hensley
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