Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is one of the psychological disorders linked to a strong feeling of anguish that has attracted the most attention from the media and popular culture.

Usually, the most widespread idea about this disorder is that it is a pathological extreme of perfectionism: an unhealthy tendency to want everything to be in the exact place it should be. However, this is a mistaken belief. OCD is not linked to perfectionism, but to a personality trait known as Responsibility .

What is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a psychological disorder that appears in the reference diagnostic manuals in the world of clinical psychology and psychiatry. It is characterized by the presence of repetitive and intrusive thoughts (that is, they arise involuntarily without the person starting to think about a similar subject) that are associated with a great feeling of anguish.

This feeling of sudden and intense discomfort leads the person to perform repetitive routines to try to relieve the distress, “closing the circle” mentally opened by intrusive thought through a kind of ritual created by the person himself.

OCD may seem tribal if we assume that it’s just the consequence of an uncomfortable thought, but that’s not the case; it can seriously harm a person, drastically altering his or her mood in the medium and long term , and it’s associated with a greater tendency to attempt suicide (although, since the latter is a statistical phenomenon, it’s not something that happens to everyone with OCD).

An example

An example of a person who has developed OCD is as follows A 25-year-old starts in a new job, and he believes that he is capable of performing in it. However, on his first day in office, he is reminded of a situation in which he says he made a fool of himself in front of his entire high school class because he didn’t know how to give a good oral presentation.

This image, together with the idea that many people may remember that event, makes the young man feel very bitter and guilty, to the point of not being able to think of anything else in the next few minutes. In order to “disconnect” from this feeling, he is forced to perform an action that he has learned to associate with the disappearance of the anguish and the guilt: scratching his face following always some movement patterns , in a determined order, and in 13 series, one after the other, representing the number of years he had when this happened.

The relationship of OCD to low responsibility

Explaining, in a nutshell, that OCD is linked to an excessive amount of perfectionism may be appropriate if we’re explaining it without going into too much detail to someone who doesn’t know much about the subject. However, if we want to have a reasonably realistic idea of what it takes to develop this disorder, we need to reject this alleged link between OCD and the tendency to seek perfection.

It is true that there is a characteristic, called scrupulosity, that is related to a mental disorder similar to OCD: Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder. This disorder is often confused with the previous one because of the obvious similarity in its name, but it’s actually quite different.

In Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder there is a tendency towards extreme perfectionism . Specifically, people who develop it obtain very high scores in the personality trait known as Responsibility, which indicates the propensity to take care that everything goes as it should, even if this requires effort. In contrast, people with OCD score just the opposite: They score very low on Responsibility, which means that they are usually more disorganized and tend not to always meet small, everyday goals.

Thus, in OCD it is not just the fact that one feels the need to perform “rituals” repeatedly. There is also what happens just before this need arises: the feeling that there are many aspects of life that have escaped his control and are generating chaos around him .

Do you need help treating OCD?

Although OCD can cause serious problems, that does not mean that it can only be treated medically, through the use of psychopharmaceuticals. These medications can help alleviate the symptoms when the worst crises occur, but they do not “cure” the patient. To combat the disorder at its root, it’s necessary to intervene on the behavior, those patterns of behavior that keep OCD alive.

As a psychologist specialized in therapy for adults and adolescents and Director of the Centro de Psicología Begoña Fernández , I often work with cases of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, helping to undo the sequence of actions that feed the development of this mental disorder. If you are interested in seeing my contact details or learning more about what psychotherapy is all about, click here.

Bibliographic references:

  • Angelakis, I.; Gooding, P.; Tarrier, N.; Panagioti, M. (2015). Suicidality in obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD): A systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review. Oxford, England: Pergamon Press. 39: pp. 1 – 15.
  • Goodman, W.K.; Grice, D.E.; Lapidus, K.A.; Coffey, B.J. (2014). Obsessive-compulsive disorder. The Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 37(3): pp. 257-267.
  • Lubman, D.I., Yücel, M., Pantelis, C. (2004). Addiction, a condition of compulsive behaviour? Neuroimaging and neuropsychological evidence of inhibitory dysregulation, 99(12): pp. 1491 – 502
  • Miller, C.H.; Dawson W.H. (2008). Scrupulosity disorder: An overview and introductory analysis. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 22(6): pp. 1042 – 1058.
  • Seedat, S. & Stein, D.J. (2002). Hoarding in obsessive-compulsive disorder and related disorders: A preliminary report of 15 cases. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 56(1): pp. 17 – 23.