Achievement Pressure A.K.A. Perfectionism? Here's How We Keep It Out of the Therapy Room
It's back to school season, which means the return of a familiar hum of pressure for a lot of families: grades, teams, university applications, the sense that everything is being measured. Researchers who track perfectionism across generations have found that it has been climbing steadily since the late 1980s, driven in part by economic pressure and a growing fear of being judged for falling short. That pressure shows up as anxiety, as depression, and as a kind of loneliness that comes from trying to be someone flawless instead of just being yourself.
Often we notice at OBP that therapy itself can accidentally become one more place where a kid, a teen, or an adult feels like they need to perform. A chair across from a clinician. A blank pause waiting for the "right" insight. Pressure to explain yourself clearly, on the spot, in fifty minutes. For someone who already spends their days trying to get things right, that setup can feel like just another test.
So a lot of what we do at OBP is built around a different question. Instead of asking "can you talk about this well enough," we ask "What does your nervous system need before talking is even possible?" That's not a new idea. It's grounded in the Window of Tolerance, a framework developed by psychiatrist Dan Siegel describing the zone where a person can actually think, feel, and connect without tipping into shutdown or overwhelm. When someone is outside that window, no amount of insight or effort gets them very far. Regulation has to come first.
Walk and Talk Therapy: Letting the Nervous System Lead
Our Walk and Talk sessions take therapy out of the office and onto a trail in Airdrie, Calgary, or Cochrane. It's not just a nice change of scenery. A well-known Stanford study found that a 90-minute walk in a natural setting measurably reduced activity in the part of the brain linked
to rumination, the kind of looping, self-critical thinking that perfectionism tends to run on. A large meta-analysis pulling together more than 140 studies found that time in green space is reliably linked to lower cortisol, our primary stress hormone. Even a single outdoor walk has been shown to lower cortisol more than a comparable walk through a built-up urban setting.
There's also something to walking side by side instead of sitting face to face. A Canadian trial out of Toronto found that walking during trauma therapy sessions was both feasible and well liked by clients and therapists alike, and clients in other research describe it as less intimidating and more approachable than a traditional office setting, especially for teens who find direct eye contact and a quiet room hard to sit in. When there's less pressure to perform being in therapy, there's more room to actually be in it.
EMDR: Processing With the Body, Not Just the Mind
EMDR therapists often describe trauma using the image of a paper shredder. A regulated nervous system processes experience the way a good shredder handles paper: a steady stream, nothing gets stuck. Trauma jams the machine. The memory stays lodged exactly as it was, with the original emotions, beliefs, and body sensations still attached, instead of getting filed away as something that happened in the past. EMDR, built on the Adaptive Information Processing model, works like an industrial-grade shredder. It helps the brain finish the job it got stuck on partway through.
This matters for achievement culture specifically, because so much of perfectionism lives as a belief lodged in the body, not just a thought you can reason your way out of. Neuroimaging research on EMDR's dual-attention stimulation has found it increases activity in emotion-processing regions of the brain while calming the more anxious, hyper-alert prefrontal areas. Other imaging research on the resource installation phase of EMDR, where a client works to strengthen a more adaptive belief about themselves, found that bilateral stimulation increased both the accessibility of positive memories and a person's felt sense of relaxation while recalling them. In other words, EMDR doesn't ask someone to think their way to "I'm enough." It helps the body actually feel it.
Art, Play, and Other Ways In That Don't Require the Right Words
Not every session needs to happen in a chair, and not every breakthrough needs to be spoken. Some of our clients, especially kids and teens, do their best work with a sketchbook, a sand tray, or a board game on the table between them and their therapist.
A recent systematic review of art therapy with children and teens found strong evidence for reductions in PTSD symptoms, depression, and anxiety, along with real gains in emotion regulation, self-awareness, and the ability to tolerate distress, all without requiring a young person to narrate their inner world out loud. Play therapy research shows something similar. A study of group play therapy with preschoolers found measurable improvements in self-regulation and self-awareness after a structured play intervention. Play works partly because it restores something attachment researchers call serve and return, the same back-and-forth rhythm as a game of catch or a round of Guess Who, where a child offers something and a trusted adult responds. That rhythm is regulating on its own, long before any words about the hard stuff show up.
There's a good theoretical reason movement, EMDR, and play or art all tend to work well together. A 2024 research review connecting polyvagal theory to creative arts and body-based therapies makes the case that regulating the nervous system through physical and sensory experience is the foundation that makes deeper emotional processing possible in the first place, not an add-on to it.
Beyond Perfectionism: Mattering, Not Performing
The research on achievement culture points to one real antidote: a sense of mattering that holds steady whether or not you nailed the presentation, made the team, or said the perfectly insightful thing in session. We try to build that into the room itself, or the trail, or the sand tray. A walk doesn't ask you to sit still and be articulate. EMDR doesn't ask you to explain your trauma perfectly. A board game doesn't ask a nine-year-old to make eye contact and talk about their feelings on command.
If the pressure of the season, or of any season, has you or someone in your family looking for a different kind of support, we'd love to have you. You can learn more about our therapists and book a session, in the office, outdoors, or online, at obpwellness.com.
Sources for further reading:
Bratman, G. N., et al. (2015). Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation. PNAS.
Twohig-Bennett, C., & Jones, A. (2018). The health benefits of the great outdoors: A systematic review and meta-analysis of greenspace exposure and health outcomes.
"Is Greener Better? Quantifying the Impact of a Nature Walk on Stress Reduction Using HRV and Saliva Cortisol Biomarkers," study conducted at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Koziel, N., et al. (2021). Walking Psychotherapy As a Health Promotion Strategy to Improve Mental and Physical Health for Patients and Therapists. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.
Amano, T., & Toichi, M. (2016). The Role of Alternating Bilateral Stimulation in Establishing Positive Cognition in EMDR Therapy. PLOS ONE.
"Facilitating Access to Emotions: Neural Signature of EMDR Stimulation." PLOS ONE.
"Art therapy with children and adolescents experiencing acute or severe mental health conditions: A systematic review."
Group play therapy and self-regulation outcomes in pre-school children (BUSSE-SR methodology study, Tehran).
Haeyen, S. (2024). A theoretical exploration of polyvagal theory in creative arts and psychomotor therapies for emotion regulation in stress and trauma. Frontiers in Psychology.
Siegel, D. (1999). The Developing Mind — origin of the Window of Tolerance concept.
This blog was written by Kristy McConnell, R. Psych. & Owner | Off the Beaten Path Psychology and Wellness | Airdrie, Calgary, and Cochrane, Alberta.
University of Calgary Adjunct Clinical Instructor
Emotion-focused Therapy Externship Trained
Developmental Model of Couples Counselling
Completed Level 1 Training in Gottman Method Couples Therapy
Cognitive-Behavioral Conjoint Therapy for PTSD (Couples)
At Off the Beaten Path Psychology, we provide counselling and therapy services to individuals, couples, and families in Airdrie, Calgary, and Cochrane, Alberta. Our team supports anxiety, burnout, relationship challenges, and trauma recovery. Contact us today to learn more about how we can support your mental health journey.
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