Negative core beliefs bias attention and meaning-making, often linking early experience to current automatic thoughts, affect, and behaviour.
CognitionDevelopmentalAttachment+1
Perfectionism can drive achievement but may maintain anxiety, depression, shame, procrastination, avoidance, and burnout.
CognitionBehaviourAffect+1
Broad meanings about self, others or the world that may shape appraisals across situations. Distinguish the broader belief, a conditional rule and a situation-specific automatic thought. WA CCI materials provide teaching language for these distinctions.
Costly rigidity around mistakes, evaluation and self-worth, rather than high standards alone. Perfectionistic concerns show stronger associations with depression, anxiety and OCD symptoms than strivings, but this does not make strivings universally benign or establish causation.
Candidate maintaining process, to be tested in the individual case: event → familiar global meaning → affect and coping → selective attention or consequences that seem to confirm the meaning. This loop should be tied to examples, not assumed from a diagnostic label.
Candidate maintaining process, to be tested in the individual case: demanding standard → threat of falling short → checking, overwork or delay → temporary relief → the standard remains untested or becomes more rigid.
Global self-statements · Persistent themes across situations
All-or-nothing standards · Difficulty finishing
“I am not good enough”
“If it is not perfect, it is a failure”
Trigger -> negative meaning -> affect -> coping behaviour -> apparent confirmation of belief
High standard -> threat of mistake -> overcontrol or avoidance -> temporary relief -> standard remains rigid
Work at the level of meaning, not only surface thoughts.
Reduce the link between worth and flawless performance.
The thought is situation-specific and changes with new evidence.
High standards are flexible, values-based, and not associated with significant distress or impairment.