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Perfectionism Is Related To Higher Depression Risk — But It Can Be Reduced
How to reduce the damage done by this depressive personality trait.
How to reduce the damage done by this depressive personality trait.
The personality trait of perfectionism is linked to higher depression risk, a review of ten different studies finds.
Perfectionists are often worried about making mistakes and tend to be highly self-critical.
Feeling societal pressure to perform to a high standard, they often believe others are continually judging them.
When perfectionists fail to meet their lofty standards, they tend to get depressed.
Practising self-acceptance or self-compassion is one of the best ways of dealing with perfectionistic tendencies.
Neuroticism + perfectionism
The conclusions come from analysing the results of 10 separate studies including 1,758 people.
The results showed that neuroticism, or ‘negative emotionality’, is the personality trait most strongly linked to depression.
However, being a perfectionist is associated with an additional risk.
The authors explain their results:
“In our meta-analysis of 10 longitudinal studies composed of undergraduate, community member, psychiatric patient, outpatient and medical student samples, neuroticism was the strongest predictor of change in depressive symptoms.
Even so, all seven perfectionism dimensions still predicted change in depressive symptoms beyond neuroticism.”
The weight of social pressure
One aspect of perfectionism is feeling societal pressure.
The authors write:
“…socially prescribed perfectionism, concern over mistakes, doubts about actions, self-criticism, and perfectionistic attitudes add incrementally to understanding change in depressive symptoms beyond neuroticism.”
Perfectionism is problematic because high standards are so hard to reach consistently.
The authors write:
“…people high in perfectionistic concerns appear to think, feel and behave in ways that have depressogenic consequences [causing depression].
Such people believe others hold lofty expectations for them, and often feel incapable of living up to the perfection they perceive others demand.
They may agonize about perceived failures and have doubts about performance abilities because they experience their social world as judgmental, pressure-filled and unyielding.”
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The study was published in the European Journal of Personality (Smith et al., 2016).
Most People Think They Know What Depression Looks Like — Here’s The Painful Truth
The symptom occurs in 50 percent of people with depression.
The symptom occurs in 50 percent of people with depression.
Physical pain is a surprisingly common sign of depression.
Over half of those living with depression experience physical symptoms such as headaches, stomach aches, dizziness and muscle or leg pain.
Indeed, these physical issues are nearly as common as emotional struggles like moodiness, lack of motivation and fatigue.
Even after successful treatment with antidepressants, the physical symptoms can linger after the emotional ones have improved.
Professor Kurt Kroenke, who led the study, said:
“Depression is a risk factor for symptoms of pain.
The most reports of pain – such as muscle pain, headaches, leg pain – are two or three times more common in people with depression.”
The conclusions come from a study of 573 depressed people visiting 37 different clinics in the US.
The results revealed that common antidepressants were less effective when the physical symptoms were more severe.
In one-third of patients, the physical symptoms lasted longer than the emotional ones.
Professor Kroenke said:
“Physical symptoms may not respond to common antidepressant treatment as much as the emotional symptoms.
Even though the physical symptoms may be related to or aggravated by the depression, they can linger longer than the emotional symptoms.”
Professor Kroenke continued:
“While physical symptoms showed, on average, some improvement with antidepressant treatment, the improvement was typically less than was reported for emotional symptoms.
Most of the improvement for the physical symptoms occurred within the first month of treatment, while the emotional symptoms continued to improve over a nine-month period.”
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The study was published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine (Greco et al., 2004).
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