There's an important difference between an Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder and an OC Disorder. Both are grounded in a person's previous life experiences.The Personality Disorder is based on a way of coping with repeated experiences of being overly criticized, put-down and even shamed by parents, grandparents or others.
As a result, there is an learned avoidance of making choices that might get criticized or disagreed with. The person becomes protective and somewhat controlling of projects or finances or anything that can ensure that he won't be able to be criticized or rejected again. Another way of describing this person is that he/she has learned to fly under the radar. Instead, the individual learns to be guided by:
- a set of internal "shoulds" and "directives" that give the person a careful blueprint of how to act and what to pay attention to from one situation to the next and from one day to the next. It's all about being careful not to be criticized or shamed - again.
- This Personality Disorder results in an emotionally constricted, rigid, and difficult-to-deal-with-change personality.
- Social, family and intimate relationships are challenging and difficult.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, however, is a way of coping with a more specific painful or traumatic experience from the past that gets dealt with by separating the memory of what happened in the past from the feelings that continue to accompany that memory.
- the compulsive part happens as the person does battle with anxious and fearful feelings by:
- repeatedly needing to push to the side or push out of sight those bad or painful feelings
- that haven't been completely repressed or pushed out of sight in the first place.
And finally, an Obsessive Personality Disorder is a more fixed part of one's personality while OCD is considered to have a very different origin and to affect a part - but not all - of a person's personality and life and relationships.
I hope this helps,
Chandler
www.drcwelch.com
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