Multidimensional Perfectionism: A Response to Bland & Hoard (2026)

This article is a response to Bland and Hoard’s article, “ The Christian Filter: Lacan and being a ‘ Good Enough ’ Christian .” Rather than critiquing, we further engage with the concept of perfectionism through an empirical lens, examining its valence, directionality, and sociocultural domains in which ideals are constructed. Drawing from the multidimensional perfectionism literature, we highlight how perfectionism is not merely an intrapsychic phenomenon but also socially prescribed and culturally embedded. Placing Bland and Hoard’s Lacanian framing in dialogue with empirical models of perfectionism, we offer additional language for understanding Lucas’s oscillation between religious zeal and self-condemnation, as well as the interpersonal and symbolic forces that sustain the “Christian filter.” Ultimately, we suggest that clinical integration is enriched when psychological research and psychoanalytic-theological reflection are held together, allowing clinicians to see perfectionism as both a source of suffering and a space of grace where desire, lack, and faith may be reimagined.