According to the medical science, the Atelophobia is commonly defined as the fear of not being good enough or fear of doing something wrong.
Actually, the word Atelophobia is a Greek word and comprised of two different words.
The first one is Atelo which means imperfect and phobia means fear. Thus, the whole meaning of the word is the fear of imperfection.
People suffering from this phobia often face the depression or anxiety when their expectations do not match with the realities.
But wait – there’s more…
What is Atelophobia? A Brief Description
The person having this phobia always worry about the thing whatever he/she is doing is not right or completely wrong or not being accepted. Like he/she does his/her daily tasks like making phone calls, eating, writing an email or even talking in front of talking.
All of these tasks could be very challenging for them because of the fear they have in their mind that they are doing something wrong or they going to fall short in their work. Such type of thinking is the ground for the extreme feeling of evaluated and judged.
Subconsciously, most of the people suffering from Atelophobia makes the perfection their goals but the goals are not reachable. This leads to miserable feeling left in the person and gradually they become useless and ineffective in their lives.
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The Atelophobes with the passage of time loses their self-esteem and self-confidence which strengthen their beliefs of not doing anything right or perfect.
Fear of Imperfection – Fear of Not Being Good Enough
Most of the Atelophobes are lest intelligent and talented as most of the other people in society. Fear of imperfection and failure masked their abilities and potentials. You won’t find them competing with anyone in the society nor they accept challenges from the people.
They are totally different from the others because they always fearing that they can’t succeed in life by any mean.
For Instance, there are number of cases available in which the highly talented painted give up the painting and hide their work because of the fear of not being good enough.
And they remake the same painting again and again and change it over and over to get the perfection but they can’t achieve it because of the fear of imperfection (the Atelophobia).
Thus, it take their productivity and they complete vanish their abilities which leads to the disappointment and anxiety.
What is The Difference Between Atelophobia and Perfectionism?
What do you think the Atelophobia is the perfectionism? Do you believe that both are same?
If yes then there is nothing wrong to say that you are thinking wrong. They are not exactly same. There is the core difference between the Atelophobia and perfectionism.
The person having Atelophobia often seems to achieve perfection in their goals but they could not achieve that because there is nothing perfect enough for them in that particular time.
Here’s the scary part…
Atelophobia is more than holding the high standards for yourself because it will not motivate you but actually it will paralyze you.
While on the other hand the perfectionism is one which respond to the anxiety through hard work and achieve more and more. Perfectionism can also be define as the effort done to fulfill the wishes, to achieve the goals of life and be the ultimate successful person.
Perfectionism is actually a continuous striving to make yourself better and better. Whereas the Atelophobia has no such upside.
Symptoms of Atelophobia
As far as the symptoms of Atelophobia are concerned then there are many for example avoidance behavior, powerlessness feelings, anxiety, fear of doing wrong, self-imperfection, not acceptance of challenge, losing control, losing focus and much more. All of them are psychological symptoms.
Let’s have a look at the physical symptoms of Atelophobia.
Sweating, increment in heart beat rate, severe headaches, tension in muscles, nausea, dry mouth, and shaking. The other signs of this phobia are
- Terrible fear of flaws.
- Impossible high standards.
- Escape form daily tasks.
Causes of the Atelophobia
Here are some common causes of the Atelophobia. Try your best to avoid them in your real life for better, happy and healthy life.
- No one knows the exact and real causes of this phobia. This may be due to the genetic propensity or may be due to any event. But most of the time we observed that it is learned response which starts appearing in the childhood or adolescence.
- If the parents are demanding type they always require the perfection of the children and strict teachers force the students for the high grades. Such situation leads to the mental disorder and builds the fear of loss or fear of not good enough.
- Most of the time, due to high parental expectations, the kids and teens set the unrealistic goals in their lives and when they can’t meet them, then they often end up with the anxiety, depression, fear of not good enough, fear of failure, and ultimately the imperfection.
Let’s dig a little deeper…
- Another cause of this phobia could be the nature of the surrounding people in society.
- Highly sensitive people take the competition hard and become the victim of depression upon failure.
- The criticism and negative comments lead to the dishearten them which ultimately leads to the loss of self-confidence.
- Constant comparing themselves with other people of society can lead to the Atelophobia.
- Their natural abilities to take worry hard can make the individuals more prone towards the Atelophobia.
- The Atelophobia is most common among the entrepreneurs who are really successful but want to beats the next level like Mark Zuckerberg and other personalities.
Check this out:
According to the Dr. Leon Festinger, a well known psychologist the wish of comparison, compare yourself with other is as powerful as the thirst and hunger, but it is always discouraging because there is always someone who is better than you.
The Negative Impacts of Seeking Extreme Perfection
There are many negative impacts of seeking the extreme perfection which can lead to the many physical problems related to the stress, depression, and anxiety.
Following are the impacts of seeking Extreme perfection.
Headaches – Stress, depression, and anxiety triggers the tension in your mind which ultimately leads to a severe headache.
Heart Attacks – Stress in life increase the blood pressure which leads to the arteries damage.
Skin Problems – When you have the stress, depression, or anxiety your body releases the chemicals you can lead to the dehydration, rosacea, and flushes. This ultimately leads to the skin problems.
Damage to The Immune System – Consistently thinking about not being good enough is proven to break down the human immune system.
Breathing Issue – Extreme stress and Anxiety can cause the tension in muscles which leads to the shortness of human breathing.
Vanish Sex Drives – Stress affects your sex life by decreasing the sex hormone level. This is applicable to both men and women.
Gum & Teeth Problems – The Stress is the main cause of the nervous tics, jaw pain, and damaging of the teeth.
Long-Term Disability – The consistent stress of getting the irrational perfection can lead to the long-term disability.
Reduce Productivity – The constant stress can easily destroy your productivity.
Impact Studies – The stress can diminish your talent and can easily drive away your abilities to get thing via studies.
No Satisfaction – When you are facing stress in your life then you won’t be able to get satisfaction in anything. You could not get please from your thinking and abilities.
How to Prevent Atelophobia?
Parents need to play an important role to prevent Atelophobia in their children. They need to talk with their children about the things they desire and opportunities they want. They need to explain everything implicitly about their coming stages.
When they are adults they things will not always smooth and steady for them. They won’t be perfect in everything as they like. We observe that in most of the cases such parent-children talk helps the growing children leads to the understanding of their fears and also lower the sights of always seen the cherished goals.
Have you ever found yourself imperfect?
Adolescence is one of the stages of life, if the person passes that stage successfully passes through and forgets, this will give the relevant experience of life. On the other hand, this stages leaves the impact on people psyche.
Most of the time this is not the awareness of the imperfection but it is the reaction to the perfection of others especially of the close ones like friends and parents.
Sometimes this phobia starts appearing in the childhood and with the serious consequences. And the prevention of Atelophobia is not much difficult.
How to Overcome the Fear of Not Being Good Enough?
If your personality showing the signs of this phobia then you must need some professional advises. Just like the other phobias, this specific Atelophobia first of all you need the psychotherapy. Through psychotherapy you can focus on the relaxation and helping the Atelophobic to understand the imperfection.
In this phobia the specialist suggest two different kinds of psychotherapy.
- Exposure Therapy
In the exposure therapy the psychologist forces the patients to face their fears so that they can easily overcome the depression and anxiety. They repeat this treatment again and again which lets the mind eventually adapt this and stop reacting negatively.
- Cognitive Behavior Therapy
While in the Cognitive behavior therapy the psychologist tries to patient to modify the negative thought and patterns in order to change their moods and ultimate behavior. They adapt the combination of behavioral and cognitive therapies which helps the patient to change their moods and behaviors in such particular situations.
If you are going through the CBT treatment of Atelophobia, then you need at least 10 to 20 sessions in order to get results.
There are many other treatments for atelophobia which you can adopt in order to get rid of Atelophobia. These treatments includes
- Group Therapy.
- Energy Psychology.
- Anti-anxiety Meditation.
All of the above mentioned treatments are really good and work best together. That’s why most of the psychologist adopt the mixture of treatments according to the patient conditions.
Fear is human’s natural reaction which stimulates from the brain to some unknown, suspicious thing or in particular situations.
But we all know that fact the irrational fear can turn into the phobia which leads to the negative impact on the personal and professional life of human. It damage the physical and mental health.
One of those phobia today we discuss is the Atelophobia, feeling of imperfection. You won’t take any kind of action in your daily routine work, ruins your productivity, and weakens your physical health and mental health.
You won’t accept any challenge and drive away your ability to interact with others.
The first and foremost you should consider with your psychologist. The other treatments of this phobia are psychotherapy, CBT, meditation, Exposure therapy, and many others.