Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD)
“People who live with OCD drag a metal sea anchor around. Obsession is a break, a source of drag, not a badge of creativity, a mark of genius or an inconvenient side effect of some greater function.”
― David Adam, The Man Who Couldn't Stop: OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought
What do you mean by obsessive-compulsive personality disorder?
Here you can observe that the word obsessive-compulsive is made up of two different terminologies it basically means that a thought comes first in the mind of the person and then to overcome the anxiety of that thought the client acts. For instance, you can think that there is a person who has an OCD of washing hands. The thought that comes to his mind is that there are germs on his hand and to overcome the anxiety of that the client washes his hands more than normal times a day. Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder is a type of psychological problem in which a person is characterized by the excessive orderliness, perfectionism, attention to details, want to overcome others environment, interpersonal and mental control which interferes with the accuracy, efficiency and flexibility etc. As we know that it is a psychological problem so it can be treated by psychotherapy.
Common Causes
There are common causes which specialists consider are the causes of obsessive-compulsive personality disorders. They are the following:
- Environmental factors
- Family history
- Changes in brain functions
- Learned behaviors from others which we called modelling
- Emotional behaviors
Common Symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
Following are the most common symptoms of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder which we discussed here:
- Fear of being contaminated by touching something
- Want thing in specific arrangement and symmetry
- Aggression
- Fear of losing control
- Unwanted thoughts like sexual thoughts
- Doubt of things done or not like locked the door or not
- Intense stress
- Images of driving a car in the crowd
- Washing and cleaning hands repeatedly
- Always cleaning things
- Have a strict routine
- Busy themselves in checking and counting
- Silently repeating a prayers word
Risk Factors of Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
Following are some of the most observed risk factors of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder:
- If you have a family history of personality disorder
- Due to some changes in brain functions leads to dependent personality disorder
- Some environmental factors also involve
- Having stressful events in life
- Other psychological disorder
Common Complications
Following are the common complications you may face if you are having an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder:
- Spending excessive time in prayers
- Relationship problems
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Excessive stress
- Physical and mental health problems
- Try to suicide
- Difficulty at school or workplace
Diagnoses
Following are the methodologies and techniques used by the doctors or psychiatrist are:
- Physical examination
- Psychiatric evaluation
- Asking about the symptoms you have experience
- Diagnostic criteria from DSM-5
- Tests for hormonal balance
Treatment Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorders
Doctors can treat this type of psychological problems by the following methods and techniques which we discussed here:
- Medications
- Psychotherapy