What Is The Anachastic Personality?

Julio is a very successful man at his job. He comments that from a very young age he liked things well done and that he spent hours and hours until he saw that his homework and class work were “passable”. He defines himself as neat, neat and a perfectionist.

In his own words: either things are perfectly done or they are just not right and they have to be done again. He likes details and that things maintain a harmony, a routine and a constancy. He thinks that his way of doing things is what has led him to the success he is currently experiencing in his work life, although he thinks that this is not enough.

Where is Julio’s problem?

Seen this way, it can be seen that Julio, a successful man, evaluated very positively in his work, hard-working, orderly… he has no problem. But the reality is that Julio’s personality is taking its toll on other areas of his life. Julio suffers from what is known as an anachastic personality.

A person with this personality type is defined by his high perfectionism and control of situations. Being a perfectionist does not mean wishing and striving for things to turn out in the best possible way. This would be normal and desirable.

Being a perfectionist means that the person imposes himself and is required that what he carries out must be perfect and since perfection does not exist, the person can spend hours and even days doing something that another person would do in much less time or directly tends to stop doing it or put it off for fear of not making it perfect.

Their desire for perfectionism leads them to never be happy with the results because they always think that they could be better and consequently, this produces a very high anxiety that makes them suffer and not enjoy their achievements.

The thinking of these people is called polarized thinking. That is, things are black or white, good or bad. The person is so rigid and inflexible that he does not allow middle ground. Either you are perfect or you are a failure and since they never find perfection, despite their successes, they end up being considered as failures.

On the other hand, they are people dedicated exclusively to their work. They don’t usually take vacations, even if their boss makes them do it. Work is your priority even taking it home every day without disconnecting or doing other activities. Obviously and due to this behavior, their social and partner relationships are very deteriorated since leisure activities do not enter into their plans and if they carry them out they feel uncomfortable and wasting time.

Relationships with coworkers are also difficult because they are not capable of delegating tasks to others or accepting external help, since they think that no one is capable enough to do things with such a perfectionist perspective as theirs and then they they will perform wrong.

As can be inferred from all these characteristics, the central belief of these people is the need to do things perfectly and the intense fear and anxiety to fail or make mistakes.

How can we help Julio?

It is true that personality disorders are difficult to modify but a good psychotherapy combined with psychotropic drugs could be of help to these patients.

-It would be necessary to work on erroneous beliefs about perfectionism and control. The objective is for these people to learn and internalize that perfection is an unreal concept, it does not exist and striving to achieve something that does not exist only causes anxiety and frustration, which makes us suffer, be aggressive and hostile or move away from our environment and isolate ourselves emotionally.

-The person has to force himself to make mistakes. To err is human and as humans that we are, we have and must err. Making mistakes leads us to learn and evolve in any aspect of our life. It doesn’t mean anything more than that. Seeing an error as an absolute failure is also something unreal, so we must help the person to get rid of that unreality and be more rational.

-Learning to enjoy social relationships and leisure time is also essential. These people feel that enjoying leisure and doing activities not related to work is unnecessary, but the truth is that everyone needs to rest, disconnect and replenish energy to later perform better.

As people, they also feel physically and mentally exhausted, so these ideas should be worked with them so that they understand that there is time for everything and that rest and enjoyment are necessary for physical and psychological well-being.

-Dramatize: What is the worst thing that can happen to you if in the end you fail in this task? Thinking about it can help us to verify that many times we form thoughts and mental images of catastrophes and dramas that in the end are not.

The anxious mind tends to think that something worse is going to happen than in reality, which results in unnecessary suffering that makes it difficult to solve problems.

Source of the photograph: http://amaltiempobuenapsique.com/2012/10/01/combate-el-perfeccionismo/