Obsessive Disorder and Religion
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) affects up to 2.1% of adults and features pervasive and intrusive thoughts that lead to repetitive uncontrollable behaviors aimed to reduce anxiety (APA, 2000). Further, these thoughts and behaviors impede and disrupt daily living and cause marked distress in the lives of the sufferer. The recurrent thoughts often center on fear of contamination, harming self or others, and illness (Himle, Chatters, Taylor, and Nguyen, 2011). Those who experience the compulsive behaviors associated with OCD report feeling as though they cannot stop or control the urge to perform the compulsive behavior and that the urge is alien or from outside conscious control. Behaviors often involve washing the hands or body, repeatedly checking, and mental acts such as counting and repeated prayers. (Himle, Chatters, Taylor, and Nguyen, 2011) According to Obsessive-Compulsive Working Group (1997, 2001, as cited by Abramowitz, Deacon, Woods, and Tolin, 2004) OCD can be classified into six domains. The domains include inflated responsibility, beliefs about the importance of thoughts, importance of controlling thoughts, overestimation of threats, intolerance of uncertainty, and perfectionism. Inflated responsibility involve excessive feelings of responsibility for actions seen as harmful or failing to take action to prevent harm, whereas the domain of importance of thought involved attributing excessive authority or power to unwanted thoughts and beliefs. Similarly, the importance of controlling thoughts entailed the belief that one should be in control of every thought at all times. The unrealistic belief that unlikely events will always occur and bring with them extreme consequences characte...
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...rurinsky, S., Rosmarin, D. H., & Pargament, K. I. (2009). Community attitudes towards culture-influenced mental illness: Scrupulosity vs. nonreligious OCD among Orthodox Jews. Journal of Community Psychology, 37(8), 949–958. doi:10.1002/jcop.20341
Rosmarin, D. H., Pirutinsky, S., & Siev, J. (2010). Recognition of scrupulosity and non-religious OCD by Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 29(8), 930–944. doi:10.1521/jscp.2010.29.8.930
Siev, J., Baer, L., & Minichiello, W. E. (2011). Obsessive‐compulsive disorder with predominantly scrupulous symptoms: Clinical and religious characteristics. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 67(12), 1188–1196. doi:10.1002/jclp.20843
Yossifova, M., & Loewenthal, K. M. (1999). Religion and the judgment of obsessionality. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 2(2), 145–151. doi:10.1080/13674679908406343
Obsessive Compulsive Disorders have been found to have many causal factors. Many of these are cultural and one possibility is that religion plays a part in severity of symptoms, like obsessive thoughts. Because of Darien’s past history and heavy involvement...
The protagonist in the film As Good As It Gets, Melvin Udall is a successful romantic novelist who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. From the onset of the film, Melvin displays ritualistic behavior that aligns with the diagnostic criteria for OCD, specifically the presence of obsessions, compulsions, or both. This paper focuses on Melvin’s particular psychopathology, analyzing the character’s current symptoms and diagnoses, the etiology of the disorder, and the key elements of his treatment.
Taylor, S., Afifi, T. O., Stein, M. B., Asmundson, G. J. G., & Jang, K. L. (2010). Etiology of obsessive beliefs: A behavioral –genetic analysis. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly, 24 (3), 177-186. doi: 10.1891/0889-8391.24.3.177
Baer, Lee. "Personality Disorders in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder." In Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders: Practical Management. 3rd edition. Edited by Michael Jenike and others. St. Louis: Mosby, 1998.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is placed on the lowest level of spectrum of the effects of personality disorders and mental illnesses. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, OCD, is a...
In the midst of his already successful career, Sigmund Freud decided to finally dedicate a book of his to religion, referring to the subject as a phenomena faced by the scientific community. This new work, Totem and Taboo, blew society off its feet, ultimately expanding the reaches of debates and intellectual studies. From the beginning, Freud argues that there exists a parallel between the archaic man and the contemporary compulsive. Both these types of people, he argues, exhibit neurotic behavior, and so the parallel between the two is sound. Freud argues that we should be able to determine the cause of religion the same way we determine the cause of neurosis. He believes, since all neuroses stem from childhood experiences, that the origins of this compulsive behavior we call religion should also be attributed to some childhood experiences of the human race, too. Freudian thought has been dominant since he became well known. In Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, religion becomes entirely evident as a major part of the novel, but the role it specifically plays is what we should question. Therefore, I argue that Freud’s approach to an inborn sense of religion and the role it plays exists in The Last of the Mohicans, in that the role religion plays in the wilderness manifests itself in the form of an untouchable truth, an innate sense of being, and most importantly, something that cannot and should not be tampered with.
Since the beginnings of psychology the debate of nature verses nurture has been going on. Certain psychologists take the position of the nature perspective. They argue that people are born with predispositions towards certain personalities, traits and other characteristics that help shape them into the people that they become later in life. Meanwhile multiple other psychologists argue the nurture perspective. They believe that people are born as a blank slate and their experiences over the course of life help shape their personalities, traits, and other characteristics. One topic that can be argued from both perspectives is obsessive-compulsive disorder. People who develop Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder are influenced by their inherited predispositions and the events that unfold in their environment.
All people have to double check things once in a while, like if a door is locked or if the lights are off. But people with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD, have an urge to check and recheck items and the disorder “controls” what people do, and how people do tasks by causing them to repeatedly see how something looks or if something is organized. OCD can be a challenging disorder to live with as it causes anxiety levels to build up.
“Most Psychiatrists don’t use the word “crazy'; but that’s exactly how to talk about it with an obsessive-compulsives. Since they are so sane in every other way, you must agree with and understand how upset they are by how crazy it all is'; (pg. 6). This stood out to me and made me realize many things. Many who would look at people with OCD would think they are crazy, but in fact they are as normal in a sense as anyone of us is but they suffer from a problem. We all suffer from some kind of problem but not to this degree, so when people label them as crazy it is wrong as yet they are saner than many of us.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a type of anxiety disorder that can be best characterized by the recurrent or disturbing thoughts that are labeled as obsessions. Sometime these obsessions can take on the form of intrusive images or the unwanted impulses. The compulsions can come from the repetitive or ritualized behaviors that a person feels driven to perform on a daily basis. The majority of people with the diagnosis of OCD can have both obsessions and compulsions, but most of the times about 20% have obsessions alone while 10% may have the compulsions alone (Goodman M.D., 2013) . Common types that have been illustrated in individual’s diagnoses with OCD can be characterized with concerns of contamination, safety or harm to themselves, unwanted acts of aggression, the unacceptable sexual or religious thoughts, and the need for symmetry or exactness. While some of the most common compulsion can be characterized as excessive cleaning, checking, ordering, and arranging rituals or the counting and repeating routines activities that are done sometimes on a daily basis multiple times in a day.
Freud developed his theory from interactions with his neurotic patients and his own psychological experiences. He classifies an obsessional neurotic is classified as one who if “aware of impulses in [himself] which appear very strange,” is “led to actions, the performance of which, give him no enjoyment, but which it is quite impossible for [him] to omit” (Freud Abstracts 2). In Frankenstein’s ...
“The Monster Within- My Living Life Story with OCD” 7 Aug. 2013. National Alliance on Mental Illness. 5 Apr. 2014 http://notalone.nami.org/post/57628850545/the-monster-within-my-living-story-with-ocd
In the book the author Jeff Bell covers all aspects of his life, starting at his first act of OCD as a child, all the way to his compulsive lifestyle in his adult years. His first encounter with OCD was at the young age of seven, when he was with his mother and sister walking down the street. He heard “HEY” coming from a passing car. Bell didn’t know who it was that said it, so he decided to ask his mother about it; who was uncertain to what he was even talking about. The thought of him not knowing who it was or who said it controlled him and almost forced him to constantly ask who it was, frustrating his mother. He was never satisfied with his mother’s answer; “I don’t know” or “You will probably never know”. In the tex...
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a disease that a lot of people suffer with in society especially young adults. While it is not a disease that is deadly, it does affect the victim in every day aspects of their life and can ultimately control their lives. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is defined by the National Institute of Mental Health as, “… a common, chronic and long-lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions) that he or she feels the urge to repeat over and over”. The thoughts that individuals have when suffering through Obsessive Compulsive Disorder cannot be restrained and really can disturb the individual. Thoughts or actions that people may have can range from worrying about daily occurrences, such as washing their hands, to having thoughts of harming people that are close to them. People tend to have these reoccurring compulsions because they believe by doing them or thinking them, they will either prevent something bad from happening or because it eliminates stress that they have. This disease can last a lifetime and can be very detrimental and disabling to how one lives their lives. Individuals can start to see signs of OCD in either late adolescence or even early adulthood and everyone is susceptible. When it comes to classifying this incurable disease, there is much debate on whether or not it a type of anxiety (Abramowitz, Taylor, & McKay, 2009). It is important to be able to understand this mental disorder since so many people are diagnosed with it. While there are treatments for OCD, there are no cures yet. Treatments could range anywhere from taking prescribed medication to just going to therapy and counseling fo...
Obsessive Compulsive Personality disorder is often confused with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which is an almost less severe