Last Updated on March 10, 2023 by Mike Robinson

Atelophobia is a type of specific phobia in which a person is afraid of being imperfect. In most phobias, the thing that is feared is a specific object or situation. In this case, the thing that is feared is how imperfection is perceived by the person who has the phobia. Based on what is feared, atelophobia can be a much more serious and disabling type of phobia for the person who has it.

In this article, we will review the symptoms of this unusual fear of being imperfect. Also, we will explain its possible causes and discuss the best treatment options.

What Are Specific Phobias?

Atelophobia is a mental disorder that is difficult to diagnose and differentiate from other types of psychopathological disorders. This is because the feared element is an individual’s feelings about being imperfect.

The anxiety disorder known as specific phobia includes cases of atelophobia, despite the fact that these cases may be linked, to varying degrees, with pathological personality traits.

Specific phobia constitutes a disorder characterized by the presence of clinically significant anxiety in response to exposure or specific feared objects, which usually results in avoidance behavior. Thus, atelophobia is characterized by the presence of especially high reactions of anxiety when the person is exposed to thoughts of imperfection.

What Do Atelophobcs Fear

The phobic object of atelophobia is based on being imperfect or not being able to reach perfection in actions, ideas, or beliefs. Unlike another type of specific phobia, such as spider phobia, the anxiety response does not appear when the person is exposed to a specific stimulus but can appear at any time when they have thoughts of imperfection.

For a person with spider phobia, it can be assured that there will be no anxiety response as long as there are no spiders nearby. Detecting when there will be an anxiety response from a person with atelophobia is much more complicated. However, the person with atelophobia will experience phobic responses at specific times.

For example, when the individual does not complete a task well, they will likely have an anxiety response. However, the idea of imperfection is totally subjective. So defining what situations will and will not cause a phobic response is not possible.

In fact, atelophobes can respond with anxiety to a situation that another person identifies as perfect, and vice versa. The only person who will be able to detect which stimuli can cause anxiety will be the subject who suffers from the disorder. They alone have the ability to recognize their own imperfections.

Common Symptoms

The person with atelophobia experiences a disproportionate, irrational, involuntary, and maladaptive fear of ideas of imperfection. In this way, whenever an individual with this condition is exposed to a situation that gives rise to a thought of imperfection, he will respond with a state of high anxiety.

The anxiety reaction carried out in those moments will affect them both physically and mentally. It will also affect their behavior.

After the thought of imperfection, the individual will experience physical responses that include:

• higher heart rates
• faster breathing rate
• tense muscles
• excessive perspiration
• stomach discomfort or headaches
• nausea, vomiting, or vertigo
• feels like a dream
• dry mouth
• body trembling

Mentally inadequate ideas like “imperfection is unacceptable,” “not being perfect will bring many problems,” and “I’ll never be well because it’s not perfect” can pop into your head without much effort.

Finally, the individual can begin to avoid situations that require him to assess how well he did or did not do. However, avoiding thoughts of imperfection can be difficult.

Consequences of Atelophobia

The element feared in atelophobia is a personal characteristic. Therefore, this type of specific phobia can result in a greater number of negative consequences.

For example, the consequences of having a phobia of spiders are limited to avoiding any situation in which spiders can appear. Therefore, the impact of this condition is minimal because spiders are rarely seen.

However, atelophobia is quite different. The object feared and intended to be avoided are thoughts of imperfection. The person with atelophobia can become very critical of anything he says or does, continually fearing all his actions. And since perfection is difficult to achieve, they are always at risk for a high anxiety response.

Challenges Faced by Atelophobics

A person with atelophobia is afraid of anything that might make him feel or think like he failed. This fear can have a big effect on how he acts and lives.

Every time the thought of being imperfect comes up, the person will feel anxious. This anxiety will lead to behaviors that are meant to stop these kinds of thoughts. In this way, the phobia itself can turn into an obsession with not failing so that you don’t feel like you’ve failed. He must be aware of every situation, action, or circumstance that could reveal his flaws, so he can be very critical.

A person with atelophobia will act and behave in a way that is based on avoiding anything that might trigger their fear, which is primarily the appearance of thoughts of imperfection.

In other words, even though it may be completely irrelevant, an individual with atelophobia may adopt a strategy that is entirely focused on achieving perfection in any situation or action that is undertaken.

Obsession, rigidity, and perfectionism

It is very common for people with atelophobia to become rigid, self-demanding perfectionists. Most atelophobes measure their own competencies against the best, with the aim of being able to evaluate the perfection of each of their personal endeavors.

This means that they are continually trying to refine, redo, or improve something that is already highly regarded by those around them. This pattern usually causes problems in their lives at work, home, and socially.

As we can see, avoidance behaviors have an effect on the consequences that atelophobia has on a person’s functioning pattern. However, according to the qualities of the phobic stimulus (perfection), the avoidance is much more serious. The person who has spider phobias will simply avoid being in contact with or near the animals he fears so much.

For an atelophobic person, avoiding his feared stimulus is practically impossible. So in attempts to avoid his phobia, he can experience phobic symptoms and have problems adapting to their environment.

What Causes Atelophobia?

Atelophobia has both genetic and environmental causes, as is the case with all specific phobias. Also, the method a child learns in the early years can play a significant role.

Atelophobia may develop as a result of educational patterns. These patterns show up in areas like ambition, perfection, or rigidity. In the same way, parents with behavior traits like obsession, rigidity, and intolerance of mistakes can also cause their children to have a very strong fear of not being perfect.

Atelophobia is different from other phobias in that it has a close link to certain personality types. Thus, the phobia of imperfection can be interpreted as a simple phobic response, a behavioral pattern, or a personality type.

This fact is reflected in the effects of the disorder, i.e., the dysfunction brought on by having a phobia of imperfection. However, it can be challenging to pinpoint the pathology’s origin.

Personality or phobia?

So far, we have seen that atelophobia causes a series of changes in behavior and way of being. We have, however, also discussed how a person’s personality and way of being can contribute to this disorder. It is important to consider the causes of each of the factors.

In other words, does atelophobia cause an obsessive, rigid, and perfectionist personality type? Or is it atelophobia that creates an obsessive, rigid, and perfectionist type of personality? Raising this question can be a little like asking, “What came first, the chicken or the egg?”

We know atelophobia is an anxiety disorder in which the phobic response is the main symptom. But we must still evaluate the impact of having obsessive and perfectionist personality traits on the presented symptomatology.

Typically, you should consider atelophobia as an anxiety disorder. Although personality factors are relevant in developing the pathology, it is beneficial to direct the treatment towards the anxiety response.

Best Treatment Options

The first kind of treatment for atelophobia is the kind of help that is given for specific phobias. So, the best treatment is psychotherapy. This treatment aims to calm the person down and force them to face their fears or the idea that they are not perfect.

Experts believe that if you can cure the phobic response by getting used to the idea of imperfection, the person will be able to stop avoiding things and will no longer act in an obsessive, rigid, or perfectionist way. However, this type of phobia can often cause more problems in its treatment.

Exposure and relaxation techniques may not be enough, especially if the person is very obsessive and wants to do everything perfectly. This is because the person may still be set on doing things a certain way.

Also read: Scotophobia: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatments

Most of the time, it’s harder to treat changes in personality. Even though phobia treatment shouldn’t be stopped in these situations, it’s usually necessary to add in other treatments like cognitive therapy or drug interventions.