Psychology Today | 17.12.2025 06:21
In Awakenings, neurologist and acclaimed writer Oliver Sacks wrote, “All of us entertain the idea of another sort of medicine… which will restore to us our lost health and wholeness. We spend our lives searching for what we lost; and one day, perhaps, we will suddenly find it.” Sacks was referring to specific points in the past, which we may cite as examples of nostalgia. But his comment reveals something deeper, which applies to obsessiveness, broadly, and perfectionism, specifically. Both often entail a preoccupation with a lost past, but one that substantially differs from anything resembling reality. While nostalgia romanticizes the past, it, at least, captures some part of it. With perfectionism, the longing is often for the possibilities of one’s past, rather than for the past itself.
