As I understand it, a person (or at least some people) with OCD will need to, say, lock a door precisely nine times. If he somehow locked it 11 times, he’d be very distressed. It’s like I’m happy when I’m 99.9% sure my hands are clean, but miserable when I’m 99.99% or 99 % sure they’re clean. It doesn’t make sense. That’s not a preference for cleaner hands, or more locked doors. It’s, gasp, crazy.
Not to mention some of this behaviour is binary, like locking doors or turning on lights. No matter how many times I flip a switch or turn a lock, if it’s odd, it’ll be locked/on, and if it’s even, it’ll be unlocked/off. I just don’t think most OCD behaviour actually follows patterns that “additional certainty” would predict.
i have some experience with OCD and i think a good way of defining it would be: people with OCD repeat their compulsive rituals as a form of negative reinforcement. when a ritual is interrupted or unable to be completed in some way, the person will usually suffer a tremendous amount of anxiety. this anxiety is relieved upon completion of the ritual making it a strong source of negative reinforcement and causing that person to repeat it in the future. while the initial [i]basis[/i] of the ritual is “crazy” or irrational (obviously locking a door nine times serves no practical purpose in of itself), the [i]use[/i] of the ritual is not—it removes or prevents anxiety.
Hey, take it up with pjeby if you think you understand the issue better, it’s well beyond my pay grade at this point. He linked to a peer-reviewed paper substantiating the certainty thesis.
You should at least consider the possibility that OCDers really do just need to be more sure, and the number-based rituals are simply the result of them having noticed that that number comforted them in the past, and then cargo-cultishly inferring that the number is somehow special.
As I understand it, a person (or at least some people) with OCD will need to, say, lock a door precisely nine times. If he somehow locked it 11 times, he’d be very distressed. It’s like I’m happy when I’m 99.9% sure my hands are clean, but miserable when I’m 99.99% or 99 % sure they’re clean. It doesn’t make sense. That’s not a preference for cleaner hands, or more locked doors. It’s, gasp, crazy.
Not to mention some of this behaviour is binary, like locking doors or turning on lights. No matter how many times I flip a switch or turn a lock, if it’s odd, it’ll be locked/on, and if it’s even, it’ll be unlocked/off. I just don’t think most OCD behaviour actually follows patterns that “additional certainty” would predict.
i have some experience with OCD and i think a good way of defining it would be: people with OCD repeat their compulsive rituals as a form of negative reinforcement. when a ritual is interrupted or unable to be completed in some way, the person will usually suffer a tremendous amount of anxiety. this anxiety is relieved upon completion of the ritual making it a strong source of negative reinforcement and causing that person to repeat it in the future. while the initial [i]basis[/i] of the ritual is “crazy” or irrational (obviously locking a door nine times serves no practical purpose in of itself), the [i]use[/i] of the ritual is not—it removes or prevents anxiety.
Hey, take it up with pjeby if you think you understand the issue better, it’s well beyond my pay grade at this point. He linked to a peer-reviewed paper substantiating the certainty thesis.
You should at least consider the possibility that OCDers really do just need to be more sure, and the number-based rituals are simply the result of them having noticed that that number comforted them in the past, and then cargo-cultishly inferring that the number is somehow special.