Patient perfectionism and clinician impression formation during an initial interview

Objectives: The negative impact of pre-treatment patient perfectionism on therapeutic alliance and outcomes has been well-documented. However, there is much to learn about how patient perfectionism impacts the development of the therapeutic alliance. Our study addressed this by examining the extent to which trait and self-presentational components of perfectionism influence clinician’s perceptions of patients during an initial interview. Design: We recruited 90 treatment-seeking adults (aged 19-64, Mage=36.2; 40 men) from outpatient mental health clinics. Each patient had a one-on-one, semi-structured interview with a clinician that lasted 50 minutes. Method: Patients completed self-report measures assessing trait perfectionism, perfectionistic self-presentation, and symptom distress before the interview. Patients were then invited to discuss reasons for seeking treatment and to reflect on the two most challenging situations in their lives in which they had not coped well. Following the interview, clinicians indicated their overall impressions of patients by responding to three self-report questions and rated patients’ distress and hostility via nine adjectives. Results: After controlling for patients’ symptom distress, other-oriented perfectionism and nondisplay of imperfection had small positive relationships with clinician-rated hostility; self-oriented perfectionism, socially prescribed perfectionism and non-disclosure of imperfection had small-to-moderate negative relationships with clinician impressions. Additionally, path analysis revealed other-oriented perfectionism and non-display of imperfection indirectly predicted less favourable clinician impressions through clinician-rated hostility. Conclusions: Findings highlight the importance of evaluating and addressing trait and self-presentation components of perfectionism early in the therapeutic process

Multidimensional sexual perfectionism

Perfectionism is a multidimensional personality characteristic that can affect all areas of life. This article presents the first systematic investigation of multidimensional perfectionism in the domain of sexuality exploring the unique relationships that different forms of sexual perfectionism show with positive and negative aspects of sexuality. A sample of 272 university students (52 male, 220 female) completed measures of four forms of sexual perfectionism: self-oriented, partner-oriented, partner-prescribed, and socially prescribed. In addition, they completed measures of sexual esteem, sexual self-efficacy, sexual optimism, sex life satisfaction (capturing positive aspects of sexuality) and sexual problem self-blame, sexual anxiety, sexual depression, and negative sexual perfectionism cognitions during sex (capturing negative aspects). Results showed unique patterns of relationships for the four forms of sexual perfectionism, suggesting that partner-prescribed and socially prescribed sexual perfectionism are maladaptive forms of sexual perfectionism associated with negative aspects of sexuality whereas self-oriented and partner-oriented sexual perfectionism emerged as ambivalent forms associated with positive and negative aspects

How other-oriented perfectionism differs from self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism

Over the past 20 years we have gained a comprehensive understanding of self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism, but our understanding of other-oriented perfectionism (OOP)—and how it differs from the other two forms of perfectionism—is still underdeveloped. Two studies with university students are presented examining OOP’s relationships with social goals, the dark triad, the HEXACO personality dimensions, and altruism. OOP showed unique positive relationships with narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy and unique negative relationships with nurturance, intimacy, and social development goals. Furthermore it showed unique relationships with social dominance goals (positive) and emotionality, agreeableness, and altruism (negative) dependent on the OOP measure used. The findings suggest that OOP is a “dark” form of perfectionism associated with antisocial and narcissistic personality characteristics