Making Peace with Imperfection: Discover Your Perfectionism Type, End the Cycle of Criticism, and Embrace Self-Acceptance

by Elliot D. Cohen, William J. Knaus (Foreword)

Demanding perfection in everything you do can create a life of stress, worry, and overload. With this essential self-help guide, you’ll learn to escape the perfectionism trap and cultivate unconditional self-acceptance in an imperfect world. Are you a perfectionist?  Do you wear this title like a badge of honor, even though it creates needless stress in your life? Ironically, the stress you create by demanding perfection from yourself and others can actually make it harder to achieve your goals in the long run. It can also alienate you from friends, family, and coworkers. So, how can you escape the perfectionism trap and start living a life of self-compassion? In this informative and practical resource, author Elliot Cohen reveals the ten types of perfectionism, and gives you the tools and skills you need to move past this distressing mind set before it leads to chronic stress, anxiety, anger, or even depression. Using strategies grounded in evidence-based rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), you’ll discover how your perfectionism is actually a result of irrational beliefs, learn to challenge these beliefs, and replace negative thoughts with compassionate ones. Being a perfectionist can affect virtually every decision you make, and every action you take—leading to a life of perpetual stress. This book can help you put a stop to the absolutist thinking behind your perfectionism and take steps toward a calmer, more balanced way of being.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Mental Health, Psychology

200 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2019

Reviews

[Ell · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a former perfectionist, I appreciate this book. There are 10 different types of perfectionist presented in this book. Each type is driven by very different fallacies and Dr. Cohen helps you uncover which type you, your loved ones or coworkers are and which fallacies drive you/them. I have been a fan of Albert Ellis and REBT therapy since grad school, so I was pleasantly surprised to find out the author worked along with Ellis to develop a logicbased therapy based on REBT philosophy. I found the Six Step Method and advice offered to be sound. I’d recommend this book to anyone who is a perfectionist or lives with or counsels perfectionists. Five stars.

[Nana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned a lot from reading this book. Did I think I was a perfectionist before reading the book, no? I was raised that failure wasn't an option and you had to do the best in everything but that was just everyday life stuff and who I was. But now that I am getting up there in age, and was letting go of things that I didn't like about me anymore, along came this book. It not only gave me permission to let them go but it also showed me what I could do to help myself. These things I wanted to let go of was causing me stress, unhappiness and I, yes, I have to say it, I wanted to be better than that.
This book has helped me understand what was happening, and it is showing me how I can be the person I want to become. I still have work to do but already not only I but others can see the difference in me. I knew I was always hard on myself but didn't realize I was on others. I thought I just accepted they couldn't do it as well as I could but I guess I came across as making them feel inadequate.
I am thankful the book is being published and think so many people will be able to get so much out of it. I received an advanced copy through NetGalley for an honest review.

[Jana Light · Rating 3 out of 5]

I took a DNA test and it turns out I am A100% THAT PERFECTIONIST. Aka, practically all of them. This is a helpful, relatively short, book on the 10 kinds of perfectionism and the rational-emotive behavioral therapeutic approach to escaping the damaging perfectionism cycle. I appreciated the presentation of REBT. There are a lot of faulty and harmful beliefs within each perfectionism, and it has been incredibly revealing for me to examine my own. In that respect, much of this book is very, very useful. It is a little repetitive, and the writing sometimes a little trite or too... enthusiastic. Bordering on cheerleader-y. But it is definitely worth a read for anyone who struggles with perfectionism and wants a more intellectual or rational approach to undoing its lies and ill effects. 

[Jeffrey Kahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very concise, practical guide to self-knowledge and greater serenity in the midst of life’s imperfection.

[Stephen P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elliot Cohen’s book, Making Peace with Imperfection: Discover Your Perfectionism Type, End the Cycle of Criticism, and Embrace Self-Acceptance is excellent. As a practical matter, it is readable, organized, and uses a helpful stepwise system. As a theoretical matter, it sets out the reasoning errors that underlie perfectionism and then addresses how the errors can be avoided. The errors can be avoided by recognizing and correcting them. The correction is done in part through a stepwise approach to build habits that prevent such reasoning from occurring and, when it does, shaping our actions.

The book identifies the nature of perfectionism and seeks to lessen, if not eliminate, it. The perfectionist is instructed to go through the following six steps.
1. Identify Error. Identify the irrational thinking underlying perfectionism.
2. Understand Error. Understand why the thinking is irrational by identifying the false premise in perfectionist reasoning. Identification includes understanding why the premise is false and appreciating its effects in one’s life.
3. Correct Error via Goals. Identify and adopt new goals (guiding virtues) to overcome the irrational thinking.
4. Form Strategy to Pursue Goals. Consider philosophical wisdom from Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Paul Sartre to adopt a strategy by which to effectively pursue the goals.
5. Plan to Achieve Goals and Use Strategy. Form a plan to pursue the goals using the above strategy in an organized, realistic, and stepwise manner.
6. Implement Plan. Implement the plan.
Cohen’s approach involves developing an emotional as well as intellectual appreciation for the error of perfectionism and why this error leads to irrational, unrealistic, and self-defeating decisions.

Among the many superb features are its discussion of perfectionism in everyday English. Also, superb is Cohen’s focus on willpower and habit-formation and the book’s acknowledgement of the effort this requires.

As a theoretical matter, the types of perfectionism (self-, other-, and world-regarding), sub-types, virtues opposing the sub-types, and insight from philosophy about those virtues is especially interesting and insightful. One of my favorite features of the book are the fascinating insights from intellectuals such as Saint Augustine, Francis Bacon, Epictetus, Victor Frankl, Abraham Lincoln, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Carl Rogers.

In summary, I very strongly recommend the book. It is readable, organized, practical, and theoretically illuminating. Written by a leading figure in the rational-emotive behavior therapy (a type of cognitive behavioral therapy), the book reflects Cohen’s years of thinking on this type of therapy and perfectionism.

[Guy Plessis · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In Making Peace with Imperfection Dr. Cohen provides an easy to use application of his logic-based therapy methodology for those struggling with perfectionism. This book highlights why perfectionism is such a destructive way of being, provides a detailed description of its various strains and how to effectively deal with each. I'd highly recommend this book for anyone who is plagued by patterns of perfectionistic thinking or behavior!” - Guy du Plessis, MA, Research Consultant at the I-System Institute for Transdisciplinary Studies, Utah State University; an author of An Integral Foundation for Addiction and its Treatment and An Integral Guide to Recovery

[Alex]

💛 “Love yourself”—by treating yourself as your own best friend (Aristotle, 1941)

In having compassion for others, there is hope for peace of mind. Don’t lose sight that we’re all human, inhabit the same imperfect world, and encounter similar life challenges.

The examples were relatable. The guidelines given to overcome the urge to become perfect feel practical. This book helped me to understand the bad effects of trying to become perfect.

[Roxane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Practiced recovering from my four self-oriented perfection types by not reading every line of this book…the ! Exclamation ! Points ! Finally ! Got ! To me! But I did learn some things and the exercises are helpful if you don’t already journal to reflect.