ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the literature relating to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for perfectionism. It discusses core of treatment strategies being based on an individualized cognitive-behavioral formulation. Personality-based approaches to the understanding of perfectionism have a long history but it was only relatively recently that a cognitive-behavioral approach was proposed. The cognitive-behavioral approach to perfectionism focused on one particular aspect, clinical perfectionism, which was defined as "the overdependence of self-evaluation on the determined pursuit of personally demanding, self-imposed, standards in at least one highly salient domain, despite adverse consequences". Several studies have examined nonclinical samples to test techniques used in CBT for perfectionism. There have been several studies examining the efficacy of CBT for perfectionism in clients diagnosed with eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety disorders, and depression. A cognitive-behavioral model was proposed to account for the factors which were hypothesized to maintain clinical perfectionism.
