Notes
This book gives general information. It isn't medical or psychological advice, and it's no substitute for a doctor or therapist who knows your situation. NHS guidance is quoted as I found it in September 2026 and applies to England.
I've kept sources out of the chapters where I could so they read easily. Here they are by chapter, with the limits I'm aware of. Unless I say otherwise, I read the published summary of each paper and not the full text. I checked each paper for a retraction or correction notice in September 2026 and found none. Where a chapter isn't listed, it rests on my own reasoning. That includes chapters 1, 8, 9, 12, 14 and 16, and most of chapters 5, 10 and 11. The people and sums of time in the examples are invented for illustration.
Before you start. The links between perfectionism and mental health conditions are from Limburg and colleagues and from Egan, Wade and Shafran, both listed below. The advice to see a GP is from the NHS pages "Overview: eating disorders" and "Overview: depression in adults". Urgent help routes are from the NHS page "Where to get urgent help for mental health".
Chapter 2. Curran and Hill, "Perfectionism is increasing over time: a meta-analysis of birth cohort differences from 1989 to 2016", Psychological Bulletin 145, 2019, pages 410 to 429. There were 164 samples and 41,641 students, all of whom completed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale of Hewitt and Flett. The journal published two commentaries on the paper in the same issue, which I haven't read. The cultural explanation is the authors' own. The list of what polishing gives you is mine.
Chapter 3. Stoeber and Otto, "Positive conceptions of perfectionism: approaches, evidence, challenges", Personality and Social Psychology Review 10, 2006, pages 295 to 319. Hill and Curran, "Multidimensional perfectionism and burnout: a meta-analysis", Personality and Social Psychology Review 20, 2016, pages 269 to 288. There were 43 studies and 9,838 participants. Limburg, Watson, Hagger and Egan, "The relationship between perfectionism and psychopathology: a meta-analysis", Journal of Clinical Psychology 73, 2017, pages 1301 to 1326. There were 284 studies. I read the full text of the authors' accepted manuscript. The comparison between the two dimensions, and the exception for eating disorders, are from its discussion section. Researchers still disagree about whether perfectionistic strivings are ever truly healthy. Applying the two dimensions to the kitchen table scene is my own step.
Chapter 4. Stoeber and Eysenck, "Perfectionism and efficiency: accuracy, response bias, and invested time in proof-reading performance", Journal of Research in Personality 42, 2008, pages 1673 to 1678. I read the full text of the authors' accepted manuscript. There were 96 students, 87 of them women. The paper's second perfectionism measure, the sense of falling short of one's standards, went with finding fewer of the real errors and with reluctance to flag anything. Harari, Swider, Steed and Breidenthal, "Is perfect good? A meta-analysis of perfectionism in the workplace", Journal of Applied Psychology 103, 2018, pages 1121 to 1144. The reasoning about diminishing returns is mine.
Chapter 5. Aronson, Willerman and Floyd, "The effect of a pratfall on increasing interpersonal attractiveness", Psychonomic Science 4, 1966, pages 227 to 228. I couldn't obtain the paper or a summary, and the chapter says so. The description is the one commonly given in textbooks. The usual account adds that the blunder made a mediocre performer less liked, which is worth knowing. The rest of the chapter is my own observation.
Chapter 6. Sherry, Hewitt, Sherry, Flett and Graham, "Perfectionism dimensions and research productivity in psychology professors: implications for understanding the (mal)adaptiveness of perfectionism", Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science 42, 2010, pages 273 to 283. Sirois, Molnar and Hirsch, "A meta-analytic and conceptual update on the associations between procrastination and multidimensional perfectionism", European Journal of Personality 31, 2017, pages 137 to 159. The average correlation with procrastination was .23 for perfectionistic concerns and minus .22 for strivings.
Chapter 7. Shafran, Cooper and Fairburn, "Clinical perfectionism: a cognitive-behavioural analysis", Behaviour Research and Therapy 40, 2002, pages 773 to 791. It's a theoretical paper. Other researchers replied to it in the same journal, and I haven't read those replies. Reading the wince as a signal that fires regardless of quality is my interpretation.
Chapter 10. Egan, Wade and Shafran, "Perfectionism as a transdiagnostic process: a clinical review", Clinical Psychology Review 31, 2011, pages 203 to 212. Schwartz, Ward, Monterosso, Lyubomirsky, White and Lehman, "Maximizing versus satisficing: happiness is a matter of choice", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83, 2002, pages 1178 to 1197. The description of burnout as exhaustion, cynicism and a reduced sense of accomplishment is the standard one in that research, and I haven't sourced it separately. The figure of two hundred and fifty hours is arithmetic on an invented five hours a week.
Chapter 11. What I say about checklists and second checkers in aviation, pharmacy and accounting is general knowledge and I haven't sourced it. That a prompt correction helps a person's reputation is my opinion.
Chapter 13. Lloyd, Schmidt, Khondoker and Tchanturia, "Can psychological interventions reduce perfectionism? A systematic review and meta-analysis", Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy 43, 2015, pages 705 to 731. There were eight studies. The comparisons were between scores before and after treatment. Keeping a record of what you feared against what happened is adapted from the behavioural experiments used in that kind of therapy. The check list is mine and hasn't been tested.
Chapter 14. Gollwitzer and Sheeran, "Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes", Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 38, 2006, pages 69 to 119. The rule and its parts haven't been tested together, and what I say to expect is my expectation and not a finding.
Chapter 15. The description of obsessive compulsive disorder and the statement that treatment is effective are from the NHS page "Overview: obsessive compulsive disorder". Self-referral is from the NHS page "NHS talking therapies for anxiety and depression". The advice on eating disorders and low mood is from the NHS pages named above.