RESEARCH PAPER DRAFT 1

Sanjida Sadekin

Instructor: Mahla Salamat

Eng 103: The Research Paper

Draft # 1

Date: 11/12/13

Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder

A personality disorder is a type of mental illness in which you have trouble perceiving and relating to situations and to people. There are many specific types of personality disorders. Having a personality disorder means you have an unhealthy pattern of thinking and behaving no matter what the situation. This leads to significant problems and limitations including relationships, social encounters, work and in school. Most people in some cases don’t realize that they have a personality disorder because their way of thinking and behaving seems natural to them. These people with such disorder, have very high standards with a rigid mindset in everything that they do. There are many types of personality disorders; one including which i will discuss in this paper is OCPD also known as obsessive compulsive personality disorder.

What is obsession? "obsession is an unpleasant, unwelcome thought, urge or image that keeps entering the person's mind, eventually causing severe anxiety". We might take obsession very lightly and think it's desirable and pleasant but for people with OCPD obsession is very disturbing, unpleasant and frightening. What is compulsive "is a repetitive behavior carried out by the person with the obsessive thought as a means of preventing that obsession from occurring or relieving anxiety it causes."

OCPD is a disorder which involves an obsession with perfection, rules, and organization, which then leads to routines and rules for the way of performing everyday task. A person with this personality disorder has symptoms of perfectionism that usually begin in early adulthood, and this kind of perfectionism can take a straight “a” student in college and cause them to flunk out. The reason behind this is that the people with OCPD, try to do everything so perfectly, which causes them to procrastinate assignments and when they do, they can’t complete them because their standards are too high.

In the early 1900s, Sigmund Freud was one of the first to deal with OCPD and he categorized it in 3 parts “peculiarities of orderliness” which included people with cleanliness and conscientiousness, parsimony, and obstinacy” (Sigmund Freud).  In 1908, Sigmund Freud named what is now known as obsessive-compulsive or Anankastic personality disorder an “anal retentive character”. He identified the main strands of the personality type as a preoccupation with orderliness parsimony (frugality), and  obstinacy (rigid and stubbornness). The concept fits his theory of psycho sexual development. He also called it, "a neurosis connected with difficulties at the anal phase in psycho sexual development," and made a distinction between obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), which he referred to as a "symptomatic neurosis" and OCPD, which he referred to as a "character neurosis"

            In 1918, Ernest Jones went on to describe someone afflicted with OCPD as being overly concerned with money, cleanliness, and time. The observations from these men were important at the time, because not much was known about this disorder. Literature begot the term "anal character," combining the character (personality) neurosis (anxiety), and, according to Freud, OCPD  begins development in the anal phase of development (Skodal & Gunderson, 2009).

Throughout our society, a very high number of people suffer from some type of personality disorder. Approximately 15% of the general population suffers from personality disorder, which appears in late childhood and late teens.  Any type of personality disorder has very low rate of being cure, although it might be at a stable condition after taking medication but not all times it works. One particular personality disorder i will be discussing in this research paper is "obsessive compulsive personality disorder". OCPD is a "pervasive characterological disturbance involving one's generalized style and beliefs in the way one relates to themselves and the world."     

There are a several ways to tell these two disorders apart. The biggest difference between them is obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions and compulsions are not present in OCPD. For example, although both OCD and OCPD may involve being excessively engaged in tasks that require exquisite attention to detail such as list-making, individuals with OCD: use these tasks to reduce anxiety caused by obsessional thoughts. For example, if you have OCD you might make a list over and over again to prevent the death of a loved one. In contrast, if you have OCPD you might justify your actions, saying that list-making is a good strategy to improve efficiency. In contrast, people with OCPD view activities such as excessive list making or organization of items around the home as necessary and even beneficial. In addition, if you have OCD, you will usually seek help for the psychological stress caused by having to carry out compulsions or the disturbing content or themes of your obsessions.

An example of an individual with OCD occurred while I was watching TLC and a show came on called my crazy obsession. On the show it showed a women who had obsession over Mickey mouse. She had almost 5000 Mickey mouse items in her house. I believe they said she has the largest collection in the world. The woman and her husband lived in Puerto Rico, but had to moved to Florida so she could be closer to Disney world. Her condition on getting married was to visit Disney world at least twice a year, which had to change over the years as her obsession got stronger and had to move to Florida so she could be as close as possible to Disney world. She visited Disney over 200 times since the 1970′s. The woman also claimed that Mickey mouse as her boyfriend, even though she has a husband. This woman seemed very sane and normal aside from her strange obsession with Mickey mouse. This show is definitely worth watching whenever it is on TLC!

Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder or OCPD is a mental stage in which a person is preoccupied with rules, orderliness and control. OCPD has the chance of running in families, which explains that it can be genetically, but it can also be influential from a person's childhood and environment. OCPD is not bias can affect both male and female. Statics show that it's more common in men. It affects almost 10% of world’s population, it can start anytime from preschool to adulthood, typically between the ages of 20-24. Many different forms of OCD differ from person to person. The cause of OCD is still unknown but better when diagnosed early. It’s more likely to see a person with obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) than with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), where both disorders have many similar symptoms.

OCPD shares some of the same symptoms as obsessive compulsive disorder, including a desire for order, but it should be confirmed that it is a completely different disorder. Ocd is an anxiety disorder (APA, 2000). OCPD is, as described above, a personality disorder. Most people with OCPD do not have OCD, and the same goes for people with OCD which do not have OCPD. The main difference is that someone with OCD is focused on particular distressing obsessions such as repeated hand-washing or abnormal fears of danger. The OCPD person is not distressed by his or her condition, whereas the ocd person is disturbed by his or her abnormal thoughts and actions.

Treatment of obsessive-compulsive  personality disorder  typically involves long-term psychotherapy with a therapist that has experience in treating this kind of personality disorder. Medications may also be prescribed to help with specific troubling and debilitating symptoms. People diagnosed with OCPD usually get psychotherapy. Psychotherapy is a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and techniques that improve a person’s insight which can be helpful for some people. The goal is to lessen rigid expectations and learn how to value close relationships, recreation, and fun with less articulation on work and productivity.

Medicine such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (ssris) may be useful in addition to psychotherapy by helping the person with ocpd be less bogged down by minor details and to lessen how rigid they are. In most cases, medication for this disorder is not indicated unless the individuals is also suffering from a clearly delineated axis i diagnosis as well. However, newer medications such as prozac, have been approved for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder and may provide some relief to individuals with the personality disorder. Relaxation; specifically breathing and relaxation techniques such as yoga may be useful to reduce a sense of urgency and stress that are experienced with ocpd.

Hospitalization is rarely needed for people who suffer from this disorder, unless an extreme or severe stressor or stressful life event occurs which increases the compulsive behaviors to an extent where regular daily activities are halted or present possible risks of harm to the patient. Hospitalization may also be needed when the obsessive thoughts do not allow the individual to conduct any usual activities, paralyzing them in bed or with their accompanying compulsive behaviors.

Self-help is a also a method for the treatment of this disorder. They are often overlooked by the medical profession because very few professionals are involved in them. Support groups, though, offer an excellent adjunct to continuing medication check-ups once a month, and a way to gain emotional and social support through the community. These groups also allow others to ensure the client is doing well and promotes the client's independence and stability. Many support groups exist within communities throughout the world which are devoted to helping individuals with this disorder share their common experiences and feelings.

Like I stated before Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder occurs in about 10% of the population and 3%–10% are reported among psychiatric outpatients. OCPD is usually diagnosed in late adolescence or young adulthood. In the United States, OCPD occurs almost twice as often in men than women. As to end this research paper there is no perfect conclusion to OCPD. This disease has affected over 10% of the world population. It might not seem a lot effected but it is very dangerous. There is no treatment for OCPD that has been thoroughly validated. There are no known properly controlled studies of  treatment option for OCPD. More research is needed to explore better treatment options.

By doing this research i have found that there are lot of people in need for help regarding personality disorders. People who suffers from it are very unfortunate the fact it's very rare but they are one of those who suffers. Therapy and medications are what is used to treat OCPD. Medicine won't "cure" it, but it will help lessen the severity of the symptoms. Individual therapy can also be used to treat it.Group Therapy is often used for treating it.  Individuals with OCPD often experience a moderate level of professional success, but as far as about relationships with a spouse or children may be strained or in danger due to their combination of emotional detachment and controlling behaviors. In addition, people with OCPD often do not keep the level of professional achievement that might be predicted for their talents and abilities because their stubbornness make them poor as a "team players" or “supervisors”. to live with a disease like this can frightening and embarrassing but it's not truly curable. I do feel bad for those who suffers and wish there would be more inventions on how to cure it totally. it very disturbing for an individual to do everything perfectly and do everything their way.