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A Sisyphean task: experiences of perfectionism in patients with eating disorders
BACKGROUND: Despite the theoretical links between eating disorders and perfectionism, the definition of perfectionism in practice is complicated. The present study explored descriptions and experiences of perfectionism described by a transdiagnostic sample of patients. METHODS: In-depth, semi-struct...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5327572/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28261478 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40337-017-0136-4 |
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author | Petersson, Suzanne Johnsson, Per Perseius, Kent-Inge |
author_facet | Petersson, Suzanne Johnsson, Per Perseius, Kent-Inge |
author_sort | Petersson, Suzanne |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Despite the theoretical links between eating disorders and perfectionism, the definition of perfectionism in practice is complicated. The present study explored descriptions and experiences of perfectionism described by a transdiagnostic sample of patients. METHODS: In-depth, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 15 patients. The interviews were analyzed by Thematic Analysis. A comparison between the patients’ scorings on the Eating Disorder Inventory-Perfectionism scale was also performed. RESULTS: Seven themes were found: The origins of perfectionism, Top performance, Order and self-control, A perfect body, Looking good in the eyes of others, A double-edged coping strategy, and A Sisyphean task. The women in this study did not emphasize weight and body as the main perfectionistic strivings. Core descriptions were instead order, self-control and top performances. All of the participants described the awareness of reaching perfectionism as impossible. Scorings of self-oriented perfectionism was significantly higher compared to socially prescribed perfectionism. No differences in the narratives related to perfectionism scores or eating disorder diagnoses were found. CONCLUSIONS: The results showed that psychometric measures do not always capture the patients’ definitions of perfectionism, but regarding that perfectionism serves as a means to regulate affects and may lead into an exacerbation of the eating disorder, and the development of obsessive-compulsive symptoms, it is important to investigate the personal definitions of perfectionism. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5327572 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-53275722017-03-03 A Sisyphean task: experiences of perfectionism in patients with eating disorders Petersson, Suzanne Johnsson, Per Perseius, Kent-Inge J Eat Disord Research Article BACKGROUND: Despite the theoretical links between eating disorders and perfectionism, the definition of perfectionism in practice is complicated. The present study explored descriptions and experiences of perfectionism described by a transdiagnostic sample of patients. METHODS: In-depth, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 15 patients. The interviews were analyzed by Thematic Analysis. A comparison between the patients’ scorings on the Eating Disorder Inventory-Perfectionism scale was also performed. RESULTS: Seven themes were found: The origins of perfectionism, Top performance, Order and self-control, A perfect body, Looking good in the eyes of others, A double-edged coping strategy, and A Sisyphean task. The women in this study did not emphasize weight and body as the main perfectionistic strivings. Core descriptions were instead order, self-control and top performances. All of the participants described the awareness of reaching perfectionism as impossible. Scorings of self-oriented perfectionism was significantly higher compared to socially prescribed perfectionism. No differences in the narratives related to perfectionism scores or eating disorder diagnoses were found. CONCLUSIONS: The results showed that psychometric measures do not always capture the patients’ definitions of perfectionism, but regarding that perfectionism serves as a means to regulate affects and may lead into an exacerbation of the eating disorder, and the development of obsessive-compulsive symptoms, it is important to investigate the personal definitions of perfectionism. BioMed Central 2017-02-27 /pmc/articles/PMC5327572/ /pubmed/28261478 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40337-017-0136-4 Text en © The Author(s). 2017 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Petersson, Suzanne Johnsson, Per Perseius, Kent-Inge A Sisyphean task: experiences of perfectionism in patients with eating disorders |
title | A Sisyphean task: experiences of perfectionism in patients with eating disorders |
title_full | A Sisyphean task: experiences of perfectionism in patients with eating disorders |
title_fullStr | A Sisyphean task: experiences of perfectionism in patients with eating disorders |
title_full_unstemmed | A Sisyphean task: experiences of perfectionism in patients with eating disorders |
title_short | A Sisyphean task: experiences of perfectionism in patients with eating disorders |
title_sort | sisyphean task: experiences of perfectionism in patients with eating disorders |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5327572/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28261478 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40337-017-0136-4 |
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