helpful tips from your uncle clyde

I have always wondered about obsessive behavior. I don’t mean the good kind – like washing your hands 50 times or watching the clock tick second-by-second for 47 minutes (that’s 2,820 seconds; I know, I’ve sat with someone that did it because someone said they’d be home and weren’t). I mean the Einstein statement of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result – type of obsession.

A person returns time and again to a rock. The rock is lifted, and perhaps the viewer expects to be comforted or, worse yet, knows he or she will be repulsed. Yet that person cannot stop him- or herself. Wherever their sojourn, they walk to the rock, lift it, and peer downward intently. They even know the burrows of the ground and what lay within them. Yet they cannot stop. Soon, they realize that the sojourn from which they deviated was designed to be sure that the rock was a part of it.

That is the bad kind of obsession.

If a person has the bad kind of obsession, it is time to stop looking at other people as the problem or the source of their ills. It is time to look inward. Yes, such an obsessed person really is that fucked up. Yes, those around him or her are right.

When that person can walk past the rock without even realizing it was there, then they are on the road to recovery. That’s a long way from present-day obsession. It is even further when one realizes that a rock so easily found cannot be every rock. There must be (and are) other rocks. And if the other rocks are not so easily found, it must be for a reason. The burrows under those rocks must be repulsive indeed! Bad obsession leads to paranoid delusions.

But never, ever forget: just because a person is certified “paranoid” (stamped ticket and all) has absolutely no bearing on the accuracy or inaccuracy of the assertion that people are, in fact, watching him or her.

If you think the former applies to you, jot down these DSM IV references: 300.3 Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and 301.4 Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder.

Here’s your diagnostic criteria:

Marked inflexibility and preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental / interpersonal control, as indicated by at least four of the following:

Marked preoccupation with details, lists, order, organization, rules, or schedules.

Marked perfectionism that interferes with the completion of the task.

Excessive devotion to work.

Excessive devotion and inflexible when it comes to ethics, morals, or values.

Can not throw out worn-out, useless, or worthless objects, with no sentimental value.

Insist others work or do task exactly as they would.

View money as something to hoarded.

Stubborn and rigid.

If you think that the latter also applies, also write down: 301 Paranoid Personality Disorder.

Here are your diagnostic criteria for this, um, situation:

Marked distrust of others, as indicated by at least four of the following:

Believes without reason that others are exploiting, harming, or trying to deceive her / him.

Unjustified doubts about a friends / associates loyalty or trustworthiness.

Believes with out reason that if she / he confides in others, this information somehow be used against her / him.

Finds hidden demeaning or threatening meanings in harmless remarks or events.

Unforgiving and bears grudges.

Believes with out reason that people are out to attack his / her character or reputation and is quick to react with anger.

Believes with out reason in the fidelity of their sexual partner.

When it comes to treating 301-PPD, I am fond of a transactional approach.

Specifically, transactional analysis focuses on the clients cognitive and behavior functioning. The therapist helps the client evaluate their past decisions and how those decisions affect their present life. They believe self-defeating behavior and feelings can be overcome by an awareness of them.

The therapist believes that the client’s personality is made up of the parent, adult, and child. They believe that it is important for the client to examine past decisions to help their make new and better decisions.

The transactional approach is also available for treatment of the OCs, but I personally prefer pharmacotherapy (better living through chemistry).

I hope this has been helpful.