Julia's Perfectionism Analysis

Julia has two main cognitive errors that are central to her symptom presentation are her perfectionism and “should” statements. Julia’s perfectionism causes her to set extremely high expectations for herself and becoming critical of herself when she failed to meet those expectations. A clear example is Julia’s expectation to maintain a 3.6 GPA and a good running time in order to keep her scholarship, causing her to feel extremely stressed out the majority of the time (p. 275). When Julia failed to meet running times, which she attributed to her weight gain, she felt awful about herself and enacted another cognitive distortion of mind reading, believing that her coach was disappointed in her. As far as Julia was concerned, her perfectionism was being ruined by her weight gain and lack of …show more content…
Rachel points out Julia’s engagement in “should” statements, as well as perfectionism, as she discusses how Julia would “talk about how frustrating it was to not be able to compete at track at the level she knew she was capable of”. Julia believes she should be compete at a higher track level because she can do so, indicating her engagement in both perfectionism (i.e. setting up a high expectation of competing at a higher track level) and “should” statements (i.e. “I should be able to compete at this higher level”).
4b. The cognitive techniques I would use to address Julia’s problematic cognitions and cognitive patterns would be to recognize and challenge cognitive distortions and core beliefs, engage in the “what-if technique”, and develop new domains for self-evaluation. Julia’s core beliefs and her cognitive distortions are influential maintaining factors for her excessive weight loss and dieting. I would ask Julia to explore her cognitive distortions with me, asking her to identify them through the downward arrow technique or presenting her with my thoughts and seeing if she agrees with them based on the evidence I provide to