Areas › Anger › Righteous anger and perfectionism
When something in the room or in the wider world unsettles you, saying so as your own unease usually travels further than handing down a verdict.
A verdict invites a counter verdict, and then the two of you are in a match. Naming what you notice in yourself gives the other person somewhere to stand while they think. It also leaves you room to be partly wrong, which you may well be, and it makes it easier for someone who half agrees to say the half.
Qur’an and Sunnah
We have made you [believers] into a just community, so that you may bear witness [to the truth] before others (Quran 2:143). Bearing witness is a middle position: you say what you have seen without taking the judge's seat.
وَكَذَٰلِكَ جَعَلۡنَٰكُمۡ أُمَّةࣰ وَسَطࣰ ا لِّتَكُونُواْ شُهَدَآءَ عَلَى ٱلنَّاسِ وَيَكُونَ ٱلرَّسُولُ عَلَيۡكُمۡ شَهِيدࣰ اۗ وَمَا جَعَلۡنَا ٱلۡقِبۡلَةَ ٱلَّتِي كُنتَ عَلَيۡهَآ إِلَّا لِنَعۡلَمَ مَن يَتَّبِعُ ٱلرَّسُولَ مِمَّن يَنقَلِبُ عَلَىٰ عَقِبَيۡهِۚ وَإِن كَانَتۡ لَكَبِيرَةً إِلَّا عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ هَدَى ٱللَّهُۗ وَمَا كَانَ ٱللَّهُ لِيُضِيعَ إِيمَٰنَكُمۡۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ بِٱلنَّاسِ لَرَءُوفࣱ رَّحِيمࣱ
We have made you [believers] into a just community, so that you may bear witness [to the truth] before others and so that the Messenger may bear witness [to it] before you. We only made the direction the one you used to face [Prophet] in order to distinguish those who follow the Messenger from those who turn on their heels: that test was hard, except for those God has guided. God would never let your faith go to waste [believers], for God is most compassionate and most merciful towards people
Qur’an 2:143read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-synthesis of qualitative studies gathered how people themselves describe perfectionism feeding their anxiety and depression, and it adds texture that pooled effect sizes cannot carry. First person accounts do real work in understanding these states. Qualitative synthesis describes experience well, but it cannot establish cause.
Egan SJ, Wade TD, Fitzallen G, O'Brien A, Shafran R. (2022). A meta-synthesis of qualitative studies of the link between anxiety, depression and perfectionism: implications for treatment.. Behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
People will argue with a judgement, but they rarely argue with what you say you feel.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
The alarm system behind your anger cannot be beaten into silence. It settles when it is understood and soothed, which is slower and far more reliable.
When someone is in full flood, leaving is allowed. Getting out of the way of a person who is past listening is a skill, not a defeat.
Anger that your friends, your feed or your workplace rewards is the hardest kind to put down, because letting it go costs you something socially.