Mia Wasikowska earned acclaim for her intense performance in the HBO series “In Treatment.”

She plays the title role in the new “Alice in Wonderland,” and notes that at age 20 she is still fairly new to acting:

“I was at dance school doing about 35 hours practice a week until I was 14. Then ballet started to grate – the whole idea of trying to attain perfection started to ruin the experience, so I decided to try another type of performance.”

From article Mia Wasikowska: My adventures in Tim Burton’s Wonderland.

Excellence can be fueled by perfectionism

Linda Kreger Silverman, PhD, Director of the Gifted Development Center, says “Excellence is the hard-won prize of those whose zeal and dedication are fueled by the drive to attain perfection, as they envision it.”

But that drive can affect others – as well as those who experience it.

Director Jane Campion said about working with Nicole Kidman [see profile]: “She can be quite murderously challenging in her perfectionism. Take Twenty: ‘Are you sure that’s good enough?’ We’re going, [wearily] ‘Yeah.’ ”

A vice & an asset

Emmy Rossum says that for her, being prepared for a role is crucial: “It’s not about control but perfectionism – my biggest vice and one of my biggest assets.” [photo from "The Phantom of the Opera"]

That is a perspective shared by many other talented people.

Michelle Pfeiffer has commented, “I’m a perfectionist, so I can drive myself mad – and other people, too. At the same time, I think that’s one of the reasons I’m successful. Because I really care about what I do. I really want it to be right, and I want it to be good, and I don’t quit until I have to.”

A number of talented and accomplished actors and other creative people are energized – or burdened – by this drive. Jennifer Connelly has admitted, “I am an obsessive-compulsive and a perfectionist. I don’t say it with pride.”

And Bridget Fonda has said, “I’m afraid of making a mistake. I’m pretty neurotic about it.”

“No, I’m a greatist.”

It’s also a matter of how you think of it.

Director James Cameron refutes being labeled as a perfectionist: “No, I’m a greatist. I only want to do it until it’s great.”

But a drive to be perfect can be an obsessive emotional force that helps fuel insecurity and dissatisfaction with your work, and undermines healthy self esteem.

Jane Fonda – in her memoir My Life So Far – admits to suffering from a destructive aspect: “Because I believed that to be loved I had to be perfect, I moved ‘out of myself’ – my body – early on and have spent much of my life searching to come home… to be embodied.”

So it’s a matter of balance, of using this need to “make it great” to refine yourself, your talents and your work, without being overwhelmed or undermined by it.

> Related pages:
Perfectionism
Perfectionism articles
Perfectionism articles & books
Article: Perfectionism – by Douglas Eby

Related book: When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough: Strategies for Coping With Perfectionism, by Martin M. Antony, Ph.D and Richard P. Swinson, MD.

Here is a podcast interview with Dr. Antony [source page] by Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney.

dealing with perfectionism, perfectionism books, being a perfectionist, Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, Emmy Rossum, James Cameron

Podcast: Download

Polish psychiatrist and psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski (1902 – 1980) worked with creative adults and adolescents, and developed a theory of personality and emotional development that is often applied toward understanding the psychology of gifted and talented individuals.

One aspect of his Theory of Positive Disintegration is the concept of unusual intensity and reactivity, as Lesley Sword explains in her article Overexcitabilities in Gifted Children:

“Overexcitability is a sensitivity of the nervous system, an expanded awareness of and a heightened capacity to respond to stimuli such as noise, light, smell, touch etc.”

[Also see the Highly Sensitive site.]

Stephanie Tolan notes the original Polish word can be translated more literally as “superstimulatabilities” and “involves not just psychological factors but central nervous system sensitivity.”

She describes the Psychomotor form of Overexcitability or Excitability: “This is often thought to mean that the person needs lots of movement and athletic activity, but it can also refer to the issue of having trouble smoothing out the mind’s activities for sleeping. Lots of physical energy and movement, fast talking, lots of gestures, sometimes nervous tics.”

From the page Dabrowski / advanced development.

Sword describes the Psychomotor form as “surplus of energy: rapid speech, pressure for action, restlessness impulsive actions, nervous habits and tics, competitiveness, sleeplessness.”

Michael Jackson exemplified a number of these qualities as a singer and dancer.

But for some people, including him, this high sensitivity and surplus of central nervous system activity can be very challenging.

Jackson took a variety of drugs that included powerful sedatives, reportedly more than ten Xanax every night. “He had a long-running addiction to several prescription painkillers, including the powerful narcotics Diprivan and Oxycontin.” [From article Jackson Death Puts Focus on Painkiller Addiction.]

The clip of Jackson is from the new documentary This Is It.

> Also see related post: Developing Creativity: Excitabilities – Our Teeming Brains

gifted adults, gifted adult information, gifted adult personality, psychology of giftedness, high ability, high aptitude

“I did not perform well socially in junior high. I was a strange girl and I was in a lot of pain because of that, like most teenagers.” Claire Danes

Elaine Aron, PhD comments on some of the consequences of being very sensitive as a child: “…family and school problems, childhood illnesses, and the like all affected you more than others. Furthermore, you were different from other kids and almost surely suffered for that.”

[From post: Sensitive and suffering as a teen: Claire Danes on being shy and high achieving]

If identified early in life as gifted, a prodigy, a Wunderkind, genius etc – that label can be another kind of burden, along with not fitting in socially.

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In a very real sense, everyone may be called “underachieving” regardless of whether they are gifted or not. One short definition is “Performance below potential.”

But high ability and giftedness are much more than advanced potential, high scores and notable achievements. What really matters in talking about underachievement is the inner experience of “falling short of potential” – how that impacts our identity, esteem, life satisfaction and mental health.

Many of us are “naturally” self-critical, and not fulfilling more of the wide range of talents we have can be yet another source of fuel for calling ourselves deficient.

Video: Gifted Underachievement – Jerald Grobman, M.D.

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A number of movies include gifted and talented characters, and depict a variety of characteristics that are positive and relate to exceptional abilities, but also can generate not so positive reactions – such as “You think you’re so smart,” or, “You’re too verbal… too bossy… too nerdy… too sensitive.”

And, of course, we may still experience some of those reactions as adults.

Movie clips include Matilda (1996, with Mara Wilson, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman); Little Man Tate (1991,directed by and starring Jodie Foster, with Dianne Wiest, Adam Hann-Byrd); Phoebe in Wonderland (2008, Elle Fanning, Patricia Clarkson); Akeelah and the Bee (2006, Keke Palmer, Laurence Fishburne); Akeelah and the Bee (2006, Keke Palmer, Laurence Fishburne).

Short list of gifted characteristics in video from article What is giftedness all about? – by Linda Kreger Silverman, Ph.D., Gifted Development Center.

List of other films: Hoagies’ Gifted: Movies Featuring Gifted Kids (and Adults!)