You might be wondering whether you are a perfectionist. Healthy or unhealthy, maladaptive perfectionist? These are all good questions to have. Why? Because perfectionism, whilst it does have its upside, can also, when sick, lead to distress not only for the person but doors around them. Here are thoughts on perfectionism assessment and perfectionism test.

  Online there are different tests that you can do to assess whether you have perfectionistic traits. For a lot of people, this is their first way of getting tested or evaluated for perfectionism. Whilst these online tests are not very accurate. They are quick. Take 5 to 10 minutes at most. They are also cheap, and for most, you do not need to pay to take these tests. When you take these perfectionism tests, you will get an idea of what perfectionism is about and what sort of questions psychologists ask when doing a perfectionism assessment.

However, a quick online perfectionism test is not very accurate. There is only so much information that you can learn from doing a multiple-choice questionnaire online. These perfectionism tests are not designed to consider your own personal circumstances, age, background, gender, and all the factors that make you unique.

Perfectionism is a personality trait, not a mental illness. There are different causes for perfectionism, such as social factors, temperament and unmet needs. We have an entirely separate article you can read on perfectionism courses here at the Epsychonline. Personality traits are notoriously difficult to assess. Why? Because people are unique, they have different temperaments. If you are doing a one-to-one assessment with the psychologist, they will be able to factor in how your childhood, current life stage, stresses etc., that you face impacting your personality.

If you feel that your perfectionism is causing significant problems, it may be worth investing in an assessment with a mental health professional.

As we spoke about earlier, perfectionism is not a mental illness. However, perfectionism can lead to mental disorders such as eating disorders. Also, perfectionism and OCD have quite a bit of overlap. If you are concerned about your overall mental health, it may be better to have a perfectionism test or assessment done by a health professional. You may be reading online about healthy versus unhealthy perfectionism. There is a difference. Healthy perfectionism is usually driven by our wish to get better, achieve or progress that is driven primarily by at want to improve and excel. Unhealthy perfectionism can look like healthy perfectionism. However, unhealthy perfectionism is driven more by low self-esteem, critical negative thoughts and sometimes a wish to impress others.

You might also want to think about whether your perfectionism is healthy versus unhealthy. Often this requires a degree of self-reflection. You are thinking about what drives you to want to achieve. Again, here are professionals who can help you tell apart healthy from unhealthy or maladaptive perfectionism.

At Epsychonline, we have a six-week course on perfectionism. We encourage you to visit our courses page, where you will find a link to this course and others. Our six-week perfectionism course has over 70 lessons and over 20,000 words of content written about perfectionism which we think offers excellent value. We hope you check our practices out and are a step closer to understanding if you need a perfectionism test.