I can expand on it sure!

Perfectionism is best understood as an anxiety or trauma response for a need of control through trying to negate the inverse of it. In simpler terms, basically if you constantly control/manage away the flaws of something, then you're controlling the result to be the best possible quality.

Which sure sounds nice and practical, even strategic -- until you account that there is no result of whatever calibre that will be satisfying or accepted, because nothing can be without flaws or critical weakness.

That's why it's inherently a state of dysfunction, because it's not about chasing an acceptable result, because nothing will ever be accepted as good enough. If they somehow a perfectionist does meet every standard they're going for, they'll simply move the goalposts so that it doesn't count, somehow. The point is to never be satisfied. It's a mistake to assume the perfectionist wants a good result. They don't know what counts as a good result even if they get it.

The perfectionist mindset doesn't even recognize what they actually want, they just are highly aware of what they don't want, because what they don't want are markers of incorrectness or mistakes that is psychologically upsetting and reflective of whatever anxiety that's inadvertently being coped with.

I think perfectionism is very easy to develop growing up as a trauma response. Everyone recognizes a chaotic upbringing can make someone fall apart and reject any cohesive structure, and antisocial behaviors mark a symptom of a rough living environment -- but not many recognize it can actually make someone extremely hyper competent, and that in of itself is a symptom.

Basically, a child who seems extremely on the ball with getting perfect grades or scores, with over-managing things to the details and still being extremely nervous that it's garbage, and being hyper competent at things too advanced for their age -- all that is symptoms o trauma, because it's a response to trying to negate what's emotionally dangerous and controlling threats. Normally it's in response to parents either being overly harsh of any visible sign of under-performance, or an incentive structure where the child is only validated with attention if they over-achieve.

You may notice perfectionists kind of 'test' their results where if no one has anything critical to say (that they didn't already account for) then they have a sigh of relief. Not pride or happiness, just relief, because it means they passed the danger test. You'll also notice that if you point something that either they didn't notice themselves (or worse, they did but couldn't figure out how to work out the flaw) then they'll get extremely emotionally unregulated and fall apart in what looks like an anxiety attack. A flaw in their process instantly because a flaw in who they are as a person and everything they're about, and they fall into a panic of existential catastrophizing.

For myself, I absolutely fit this picture. I definitely am a compulsive perfectionist, though not really as bad as I used to be. My upbringing was extremely chaotic and unstable, and I grew up in a high-achieving family. Over-performing was rewarded and any kind of mistake or oversight was pointed out derisively.

It's why trying to assure a perfectionist something is good enough, it's fine, and that they don't have to achieve the highest form of standard -- it doesn't work. At all. That assumes they actually want that standard. They don't. A perfectionist wants to feel safe and in control, and so long as flaws exist, their emotional stability is threatened and left precarious, because it's leaving modes of vulnerability to potentially be used against them.

Though it's easy to develop, I also think it's not that difficult to train yourself out of it either. In my experience, it's not really about trying to teach yourself that flaws are to be accepted (if it was that easy, then it wouldn't be an issue in the first place), it's about training yourself to reward yourself with the results you do have, to understand what standards you actually want for yourself and going for. When you do that, you teach yourself to celebrate and feel satisfied by accomplishment, rather then rake yourself raw over something you don't even really know you want.

Basically, learning to recognize what you actually want for yourself, clearly define what those standards are, and feel extremely happy and celebrate yourself when you manage them. Much in the same way you solve a puzzle in a video game. No one beats themselves up for getting a 'game over', they just get more focused in trying to do whatever is needed to achieve the thing and get to the next part of the game.