Estimated Reading Time: 14–16 minutes

Perfectionism can look remarkably productive from the outside. A person may be conscientious, ambitious, organized, attentive to detail, and deeply committed to doing excellent work, and these qualities may earn them praise for being dependable or for “always getting things right.” Yet behind that competence there can be a much more exhausting internal experience: constant self-monitoring, fear of mistakes, difficulty making decisions, repeated checking, procrastination, and a persistent feeling that whatever has been accomplished could still have been better. Even success may bring only temporary relief, because the perfectionistic mind quickly finds the next flaw, raises the standard, or worries about whether the same level of performance can be maintained.

Creativity might seem like a natural antidote to this pressure, but for someone struggling with perfectionism, creative activities can easily become another arena for evaluation. Give a perfectionistic client a blank sheet of paper and an invitation to draw freely, and instead of experiencing freedom, they may immediately wonder what they are supposed to draw, whether they are doing the exercise correctly, whether their work looks childish, which colors they should use, or whether they can start again if the result does not look right. What appears to be hesitation about an art exercise may actually reveal something much larger about the person's relationship with uncertainty, performance, mistakes, and self-worth.

This is one reason art therapy can be particularly valuable when working with perfectionistic patterns. Rather than discussing perfectionism only as an abstract concept, art-making allows clients to encounter their patterns in real time. A person may understand intellectually that “nobody is perfect” and still experience genuine discomfort when a line goes somewhere they did not intend, when paint spreads beyond a boundary, or when an image does not resemble what they had imagined. Within the therapeutic setting, these small creative disruptions can become opportunities to notice the urge to erase, control, compare, apologize, restart, or abandon the page and then experiment with another possibility: staying with what has happened and continuing.

What You Will Learn

In this article, you will learn:

• How perfectionism differs from healthy striving and high standards.

• Why creative activities can activate perfectionistic fears so quickly.

• How art therapy can reveal hidden rules about mistakes, competence, and approval.

• How therapists can use uncertainty, unfinished work, and creative experimentation therapeutically.

• Practical approaches for clients who erase, compare, restart, overwork, or judge their creations.

• Why the deeper goal is psychological flexibility rather than simply producing deliberately imperfect art.

Understanding What Perfectionism Really Is

Perfectionism is often described casually as wanting everything to be perfect, but psychological research presents a much more complex picture. Frost and colleagues (1990), in their influential multidimensional model, identified several dimensions associated with perfectionism, including high personal standards, concern over mistakes, doubts about actions, organization, and perceived parental expectations and criticism. Hewitt and Flett (1991) approached the construct from another perspective, distinguishing among self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism, and socially prescribed perfectionism. These models help explain why two people who both appear highly driven may have very different internal experiences. One may pursue challenging goals with enthusiasm and recover relatively easily when things go wrong, while another may experience every error as evidence of inadequacy.

This distinction is important because having high standards is not automatically unhealthy. Research differentiating perfectionistic strivings from perfectionistic concerns suggests that striving for excellence and setting demanding goals can have different psychological implications from excessive concern about mistakes, doubts, and harsh self-evaluation (Stoeber & Otto, 2006). The difficulty arises when standards become rigid, when self-worth becomes dependent on meeting them, and when falling short is interpreted not simply as an imperfect performance but as evidence of personal failure. Shafran, Cooper, and Fairburn (2002) described clinical perfectionism as a pattern in which self-evaluation becomes overly dependent on striving to meet demanding standards despite negative consequences.

This can create a self-perpetuating cycle. Imagine someone who spends four hours preparing a presentation that realistically requires one. If the presentation goes badly, she may criticize herself for not preparing enough. If it goes extremely well, she may conclude that the four hours of preparation were necessary, reinforcing the belief that she must work this hard every time. Praise does not necessarily provide lasting satisfaction because success may simply increase the pressure to perform at the same level again. The person appears successful, yet internally she is learning that safety depends on constant effort and that relaxing her standards is dangerous.

The same pattern can quietly enter activities that were never meant to be achievements. Someone decides to start journaling but becomes preoccupied with neat handwriting and well-formed thoughts. Another person buys art supplies but postpones using them because they do not want to “waste” good materials while they are still a beginner. Someone else wants to take a dance class but decides to become fitter first because they cannot tolerate looking inexperienced. In each case, perfectionism does more than encourage high standards; it restricts participation. The person must feel sufficiently competent before allowing themselves to begin.

Why Creativity Can Feel Surprisingly Threatening

A blank page contains enormous freedom, but freedom can be uncomfortable when someone relies heavily on rules to feel secure. In many areas of life, perfectionistic people learn to protect themselves through preparation, prediction, and control. They may research extensively before making decisions, rehearse conversations, repeatedly check messages before sending them, or avoid activities in which they cannot predict how well they will perform. These behaviors can temporarily reduce anxiety, but they also reinforce the belief that uncertainty must be eliminated before action is safe.

Creative activities interfere with this strategy because there may be no objectively correct place to put the first line, no ideal color combination, and no guarantee that the finished image will resemble what the person initially imagined. Paint can drip, ink can spread, clay can collapse, collage materials may refuse to align neatly, and proportions in a drawing can suddenly look wrong. For someone whose sense of safety is closely tied to control, these ordinary features of art-making can feel surprisingly significant.

A therapist might invite a client to create a quick image representing how the past week felt. Instead of beginning, the client asks, “What exactly am I supposed to draw?” When the therapist explains that there is no correct answer, the client asks what other people usually draw. This interaction offers valuable information because the client is searching for an external standard before allowing themselves to act. The question beneath the question may be: How do I make sure I am acceptable before I expose what I create?

Rather than treating this hesitation as resistance, the therapist can approach it with curiosity. The creative task has already begun to reveal how the client responds when instructions are open, outcomes are uncertain, and there is no clear standard against which to measure success. These are often the same conditions that make everyday decisions, relationships, transitions, and new experiences difficult.

Art Therapy Is About the Process, Not Artistic Performance

One of the most important ideas to establish when working with perfectionism is that art therapy is not an art class and the purpose of the activity is not to produce aesthetically impressive work. The American Art Therapy Association describes art therapy as a mental health profession that integrates active art-making, the creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship. Artistic ability is not a prerequisite for meaningful participation.

This distinction becomes particularly important because perfectionistic clients may automatically transform therapeutic exercises into performance tasks. If a therapist asks someone to draw how anxiety feels, the client may become preoccupied with whether the drawing looks good. If asked to create a collage representing identity, they may spend most of the session trying to arrange the pieces symmetrically. If given clay, they may repeatedly smooth the surface until every irregularity disappears. The therapist does not need to interpret every choice as pathological, because some people simply enjoy precision and detailed work. What matters is the emotional flexibility surrounding those choices.

If the client enjoys creating symmetry but can comfortably tolerate an uneven section, there may be little concern. If one crooked piece suddenly creates intense frustration and an urgent need to restart, however, the process may reveal something worth exploring. What does the client believe the imperfection says about them? What emotion appears when something cannot be corrected? Whose imagined judgment enters the room? What would happen if the work remained unfinished or uneven? The artwork becomes less important as an object to evaluate and more useful as a setting in which psychological habits can become visible.

Making Hidden Perfectionistic Rules Visible

Perfectionism often operates through internal rules that have been repeated for so long that they no longer feel like beliefs. They feel like facts. A person may assume that they should know what they are doing before they begin, that mistakes prove they were careless, that anything worth doing should be done extremely well, or that other people will notice flaws immediately. These assumptions can organize behavior without the person consciously recognizing how much influence they have.

Art-making can bring these rules into the open because creative materials do not always cooperate with plans. Imagine a client working with charcoal who accidentally makes a dark mark across an area she intended to leave blank. Her body tightens and she immediately says, “I ruined it.” The therapist could respond by reassuring her that the picture still looks good, but doing so may unintentionally reinforce the idea that the important question is whether the work remains aesthetically acceptable. A more useful response might be to notice the speed and intensity of the reaction: “That mark appeared, and almost immediately the whole picture felt ruined. What happened for you in that moment?”

The conversation may then move far beyond charcoal. The client might recognize that she experiences the same reaction after making a typo in an important email, forgetting an appointment, saying the wrong thing during an argument, missing a workout, or deviating from a carefully planned routine. A small error becomes evidence that the larger effort has failed. In cognitive terms, this resembles all-or-nothing evaluation, where outcomes are divided into categories such as success or failure rather than understood along a continuum.

The art-making process gives the therapist and client something concrete to observe together. Instead of discussing whether the client “is a perfectionist,” they can explore what actually happens when expectations and reality diverge. That shift from label to lived experience often makes therapeutic work more specific and less judgmental.

Learning to Stay With an Imperfect Mark

One of the most powerful possibilities in art therapy is that a mistake does not have to end the activity. It can become part of what happens next. This sounds simple, yet it challenges one of perfectionism's central assumptions: that errors must be prevented or corrected before progress can continue.

A therapist might intentionally use materials that make complete control difficult. Drawing with the non-dominant hand, creating a continuous-line image without lifting the pencil, working with a large brush, using ink that cannot be erased, or setting a short time limit can all reduce the opportunity for endless refinement. The purpose is not to make deliberately bad art or humiliate the client by taking away competence. Instead, these exercises create manageable encounters with uncertainty and imperfection.

Suppose a client draws with her non-dominant hand and initially laughs at the uneven shapes. After a few minutes, however, she becomes irritated and says, “This looks ridiculous.” Rather than reassuring her about the drawing, the therapist becomes curious about the word ridiculous. The client eventually says, “I hate looking like I don't know what I'm doing.” That statement may lead toward a much deeper understanding of the role competence plays in her identity. Perhaps she learned early that achievement earned praise, that mistakes invited criticism, or that being capable was the safest way to avoid needing help.

The therapeutic work is therefore not contained in the exercise itself. Asking a perfectionistic client to make messy art is not automatically therapeutic. The value lies in what the experience activates and how it is processed within a supportive therapeutic relationship.

When the Client Wants to Start Over

A particularly revealing moment may occur when the client looks at the page and asks for another one. There are many occasions when giving someone fresh paper is entirely appropriate, and therapy should never become an arbitrary exercise in withholding choice. Yet the desire to restart can also be explored gently: What would a new page provide that the current one cannot?

The answer may be, “I could do it properly this time.” This opens an opportunity to examine what “properly” means and when the current attempt became unacceptable. For some perfectionistic people, restarting is not limited to artwork. They repeatedly restart routines, diets, exercise programs, writing projects, personal-development plans, or hobbies because a deviation makes the entire attempt feel spoiled. A carefully planned week is disrupted on Wednesday, so instead of continuing on Thursday, they decide to start again next Monday. A journal entry looks messy, so the page is removed. One day of overeating becomes evidence that a health plan has failed.

Art provides a small and relatively safe environment in which another response can be practiced. Instead of replacing the page, the client can experiment with incorporating the unwanted element. A watercolor spill becomes part of the background. A torn piece of paper becomes part of a collage. A crooked line becomes a path or boundary. The psychological shift is subtle but important: the question moves from How can I prevent anything from going wrong? to Given what has happened, what can I do now?

That second question is not only more creative; it is far more useful for navigating life.

Moving From Evaluation to Curiosity

Perfectionism tends to organize experience around evaluation. Things are good or bad, successful or failed, impressive or embarrassing, correct or incorrect, enough or not enough. This evaluative mindset can be useful in situations that genuinely require assessment, but when it dominates every experience, there is little room for experimentation.

Creative work offers an opportunity to practice a different orientation. Instead of asking whether a drawing is good, the client can explore what surprised them, which part felt easiest, where they became hesitant, when they felt most absorbed, or what happened when they stopped planning. The goal is not to prohibit judgment, because artists naturally evaluate their work and people need standards in many areas of life. The aim is to expand the range of questions available.

This matters because curiosity and perfectionistic self-monitoring pull attention in different directions. When someone is preoccupied with how they are performing, part of their attention is constantly observing the self from the outside. They are not only creating; they are watching themselves create and imagining how the result will be judged. Curiosity returns attention to the experience itself. What happens if I put this color here? What does this texture remind me of? What changes if I make the next shape larger?

In this way, creative activity can become practice in psychological flexibility: responding to what is actually happening rather than rigidly forcing experience to match a predetermined plan.

The “Ugly Art” Experiment

A simple but potentially revealing intervention is to invite a client to create something intentionally awkward, messy, strange, exaggerated, or aesthetically unimportant. The therapist might provide inexpensive paper rather than a beautiful sketchbook, because expensive materials can increase pressure to avoid “wasting” them, and then offer a limited period in which the client can create something that does not need to be displayed, saved, explained, improved, or shown to anyone else.

For some clients, this invitation produces immediate relief. For others, it reveals just how deeply performance rules have become embedded. A client may carefully coordinate colors while making “messy” art, arrange the chaos symmetrically, or become concerned about whether the result is imperfect enough. Perfectionism has simply adapted to the new instructions.

This is not a failed exercise. In fact, it may be one of the most useful moments in the session. The therapist can gently observe that even when the task removed the expectation of producing something polished, another part of the client still searched for a way to perform the exercise correctly. When approached with warmth, curiosity, and sometimes gentle humor, this recognition can help clients see how perfectionism enters activities that were originally intended to provide pleasure, rest, play, or exploration.

Giving the Inner Critic a Form

Perfectionism often comes with a recognizable internal voice. It may sound like a demanding teacher insisting that the person should know better, an anxious parent warning them not to embarrass themselves, or an imagined audience noticing every weakness. For many people, this voice has become so familiar that they no longer experience it as one perspective among many; it simply sounds like reality.

Art can help externalize this critic. A client might be invited to represent it visually, exploring its size, position, colors, texture, facial expression, or symbolic features. Perhaps it has enormous eyes that watch everything. Perhaps it carries a ruler and constantly measures. Perhaps it stands over a much smaller version of the self. The resulting image does not need to be interpreted according to a fixed symbolic system. Its value lies in helping the client develop some distance from a voice that previously felt inseparable from their identity.

The therapist can then become curious about what the critic believes it is accomplishing. Harsh perfectionistic self-talk is often painful, but it may also have developed around a protective intention. The critic may believe that if it identifies every flaw first, nobody else can surprise the person with criticism. It may believe that exceptional performance guarantees acceptance, or that relentless preparation prevents humiliation. Recognizing this function does not mean endorsing self-criticism. Instead, it allows therapy to ask a more compassionate question: if the critic has been trying to create safety, are there less punishing ways to create that safety now?

Creating Without the Possibility of Erasing

Materials that cannot easily be corrected can provide another useful therapeutic experience. Markers, ink, oil pastels, paint, and collage all reduce the possibility of returning the page to its original condition. A therapist might invite a client to create an image in ink with a simple agreement that every mark will remain.

At first, this can create considerable discomfort. A line bends unexpectedly, a shape becomes larger than intended, or two areas overlap awkwardly. The client's instinct may be to repair the mistake immediately, but when erasing is unavailable, they must decide how to respond to the image that actually exists rather than the one they originally planned.

Over time, something may shift. Instead of protecting the initial idea, the person begins adapting to what appears on the page. A strange line becomes part of a larger shape; an accidental mark inspires a new direction. This creative adaptation can become a powerful metaphor for life because many experiences cannot be erased. We cannot undo every conversation, decision, disappointment, loss, or unexpected change. Psychological flexibility does not come from maintaining an untouched life. It comes partly from developing the capacity to respond to reality after reality has departed from the plan.

Perfectionism Is Also an Embodied Experience

Perfectionism is often discussed through thoughts and beliefs, but clients may also experience it physically. A person can understand intellectually that an imperfect drawing is harmless while noticing their shoulders tighten when something goes wrong. They may hold their breath while working on a difficult section, clench their jaw when a line becomes uneven, or experience a sudden urge to correct something before they can relax.

Art-making can make these bodily reactions easier to notice because they occur in the moment. Rather than discussing generally how mistakes feel, the therapist can ask what happened physically when the paint dripped or when the client realized that a shape could not be corrected. The person might experiment with leaving the mark untouched for thirty seconds while observing the urge to fix it. The purpose is not to create unnecessary distress but to discover that discomfort can be experienced without always requiring immediate corrective action.

Research also suggests that creative art-making can be associated with changes in stress-related experience. In a study involving 39 healthy adults, Kaimal, Ray, and Muniz (2016) found a statistically significant reduction in cortisol following 45 minutes of art-making. Participants described experiences that included relaxation, enjoyment, self-discovery, freedom from constraints, and absorption in the creative process. This finding should not be interpreted to mean that art automatically reduces stress or treats perfectionism; for some perfectionistic clients, art-making itself can initially be stressful. It does, however, illustrate why creative activity can be understood as an embodied process rather than simply another way of talking about thoughts.

Replacing Outcome Goals With Process Goals

Perfectionism becomes particularly rigid when success is defined entirely by outcomes: the picture must look good, the presentation must impress everyone, the conversation must go smoothly, or the project must succeed. Many of these outcomes are only partly controllable, which means the person can work extremely hard and still feel unsafe.

Process goals offer another way of defining success. During an art therapy exercise, the goal might be to work for fifteen minutes without restarting, choose several colors without repeatedly reconsidering them, notice self-critical thoughts without immediately responding to them, or allow one unwanted mark to remain. The person is still practicing effort and intentionality, but success no longer depends entirely on producing a particular result.

This distinction is especially important because therapeutic work with perfectionism should not automatically discourage ambition. Research distinguishing perfectionistic strivings from perfectionistic concerns suggests that setting high standards and pursuing excellence do not carry exactly the same psychological implications as chronic concern over mistakes and harsh self-evaluation (Stoeber & Otto, 2006). A healthier goal is therefore not necessarily to stop trying hard but to loosen the connection between performance and personal worth.

A client can care deeply about doing something well while still recognizing that a disappointing result does not define them. They can revise something because revision improves the work, rather than because stopping feels psychologically intolerable. This is the difference between having standards and being controlled by them.

Learning When Something Is “Good Enough”

For some perfectionistic clients, beginning is the hardest part. For others, the greater difficulty is finishing. They repeatedly revise, adjust, check, polish, and refine because completion creates exposure. As long as the work remains unfinished, every flaw can theoretically still be corrected. Declaring something finished means accepting that it will exist in the world with limitations.

Timed art-making can provide a gentle way of exploring this discomfort. A therapist might establish twenty minutes for creation followed by time for reflection. When the timer ends, the artwork is considered complete for the purpose of the exercise. The client may immediately say, “But I'm not finished,” creating an opportunity to explore what finishing actually means. Is there an objective requirement still missing, or is the client waiting for an internal feeling of complete certainty and satisfaction that rarely arrives?

This distinction can have important implications outside therapy. Not every email deserves forty minutes of editing. Not every meal needs to impress. Not every conversation can be perfectly worded. Not every project benefits from endless revision. Learning to decide that something is sufficient for its purpose is not the same as lowering all standards. It is learning proportionality: deciding how much time, energy, precision, and attention a particular task genuinely deserves.

When Perfectionism Depends on Other People's Approval

Not all perfectionism is driven primarily by personal standards. Hewitt and Flett's (1991) model includes socially prescribed perfectionism, in which people perceive others as demanding perfection and believe that acceptance depends on meeting those expectations. This interpersonal dimension can become visible very quickly during creative work.

A client may repeatedly look toward the therapist while drawing and ask whether the work is okay, whether they are doing what was intended, or whether the image “makes sense.” Constant reassurance can provide temporary comfort, but it may also unintentionally reinforce the therapist's position as the evaluator whose approval determines whether the client is succeeding.

Instead, the therapist can gradually return some authority to the client by asking what they notice, what feels complete, which choice they prefer, or what they might choose if nobody else were watching. Initially, these questions can feel frustrating rather than liberating. A client who has spent years orienting toward other people's expectations may genuinely struggle to identify what they themselves prefer.

This is one reason art-making can be so valuable. Within a relatively safe context, the person can begin practicing preference without justification. They can choose blue simply because they want blue. They can stop because the image feels complete to them. They can create something that the therapist does not need to understand completely. These small acts can gradually strengthen an internal sense of authorship.

Taking the Lesson Beyond the Art Room

Art-based work becomes especially meaningful when clients can recognize how the patterns appearing on the page also appear in everyday life. If someone repeatedly abandons a drawing after an unwanted mark, where else do they restart rather than continue? If they spend most of the session correcting tiny details, where else do they invest disproportionate effort in preventing minor imperfections? If they cannot begin without detailed instructions, where else are they waiting for certainty before taking action?

The therapist can help the client translate creative experiments into small behavioral experiments outside the session. Someone who practiced leaving an imperfect mark might send an ordinary email after proofreading it once rather than six times. Someone who completed a timed drawing could give themselves a realistic limit for preparing a routine presentation. Someone who continued after a watercolor spill might return to an exercise routine after missing a day instead of declaring the entire week unsuccessful.

The purpose is not to become careless. The client is learning that correction is a choice rather than an automatic obligation and that mistakes vary in importance. Some errors genuinely need to be corrected. Others can simply be noticed and left alone. Psychological flexibility includes being able to distinguish between the two.

When “Recovering From Perfectionism” Becomes Another Perfectionistic Goal

There is an important paradox in working with perfectionism: people can become perfectionistic about overcoming perfectionism. They may want to perform therapy correctly, ask how quickly they should improve, become frustrated when self-critical thoughts continue, or judge themselves for caring too much about what others think. An intervention intended to create freedom can quickly become another standard.

The same risk exists in art therapy. A client might begin believing they are supposed to enjoy messy art, never erase anything, become completely spontaneous, or stop caring about aesthetics. This simply replaces one rigid rule with another. Effective therapeutic work therefore needs room for individual preference, ambivalence, resistance, and pacing.

Some people genuinely love detailed drawing. They enjoy symmetry, precision, careful planning, or highly refined craftsmanship. These preferences do not need to disappear. The more useful question is whether they have flexibility. Can they work carefully when care serves the task and work more loosely when precision is unnecessary? Can they spend hours refining something meaningful without feeling compelled to spend the same amount of effort on everything? Can they pursue excellence while surviving an ordinary mistake?

The therapeutic aim is not messiness. It is choice.

Creativity Requires Permission to Be a Beginner

One of the less obvious costs of perfectionism is that it can make being a beginner feel humiliating. Yet learning almost anything meaningful requires a period during which we cannot do it particularly well. A child learning to write forms uneven letters. Someone learning another language mispronounces words. A beginning painter mixes colors unsuccessfully. A person learning to set boundaries sometimes says too much and sometimes not enough. Development is full of awkward intermediate stages.

Perfectionism can reinterpret these stages as evidence of inadequacy rather than evidence of learning. As a result, some people avoid new experiences unless they believe they can become competent quickly. They may admire creativity while quietly restricting themselves to activities in which they already know how to succeed.

Art therapy can offer a protected space for practicing beginnerhood. A client can encounter unfamiliar materials without being expected to master them and notice what happens emotionally when competence is temporarily unavailable. The question is no longer how quickly the person can become good at painting, clay, collage, or drawing. It is whether they can remain curious and engaged while they are still learning.

That capacity extends far beyond creativity. Careers change, relationships require new skills, bodies change, families move through unfamiliar stages, and life repeatedly places people in situations where previous expertise is insufficient. Being able to remain present while not yet knowing exactly what to do is an important form of psychological resilience.

Conclusion: The Freedom to Continue

Perfectionism often promises safety through control. If we prepare enough, check enough, achieve enough, avoid enough mistakes, and meet enough expectations, perhaps we can protect ourselves from criticism, disappointment, embarrassment, or rejection. Yet when every action becomes a test of adequacy, curiosity begins to shrink. Mistakes become threats rather than information, experimentation feels dangerous, and even success provides only temporary relief because the next opportunity to fail is already approaching.

Art therapy offers a different kind of experience. A line can be crooked without requiring the page to be thrown away. Paint can spill and become part of something that was never planned. A picture can remain imperfect, ambiguous, or unfinished without becoming evidence that the person who made it is inadequate. Through repeated experiences like these, clients can begin developing a more flexible relationship with uncertainty, mistakes, standards, and self-evaluation.

The aim is not to celebrate every error, abandon standards, or convince people that quality never matters. It is to recognize that excellence and psychological flexibility can coexist. We can care about what we create without making every outcome a verdict on our worth. We can correct what genuinely needs correcting while allowing minor imperfections to remain. We can work carefully when care is useful and stop when additional effort no longer serves the purpose.

For the perfectionistic client, one of the most important discoveries in art therapy may therefore have very little to do with becoming an artist. It is the discovery that when something does not turn out exactly as intended, they do not necessarily have to erase it, hide it, apologize for it, or begin again. They can look at what is actually there, decide what matters, respond creatively, and continue.

And eventually, that freedom can extend far beyond the page.

References

American Art Therapy Association. (n.d.). About art therapy. American Art Therapy Association.

Frost, R. O., Marten, P., Lahart, C., & Rosenblate, R. (1990). The dimensions of perfectionism. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 14(5), 449–468. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01172967

Hewitt, P. L., & Flett, G. L. (1991). Perfectionism in the self and social contexts: Conceptualization, assessment, and association with psychopathology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(3), 456–470. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.60.3.456

Kaimal, G., Ray, K., & Muniz, J. (2016). Reduction of cortisol levels and participants' responses following art making. Art Therapy, 33(2), 74–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2016.1166832

Malchiodi, C. A. (2007). The art therapy sourcebook. McGraw-Hill.

Shafran, R., Cooper, Z., & Fairburn, C. G. (2002). Clinical perfectionism: A cognitive-behavioural analysis. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 40(7), 773–791. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7967(01)00059-6

Stoeber, J., & Otto, K. (2006). Positive conceptions of perfectionism: Approaches, evidence, challenges. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(4), 295–319. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR1004_2