Under construction....Aug 5th, 2010.
Synopsis
In this essay, I will bring together an assortment of different sub-topics relative to the more all-encompassing topic of 'character types' such as: 1. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder; 2. The Freudian Categorization of 'The Anal' Personality Type; 3. Libido; and 5. The 'Hoarding' Personality.
Let us see where this takes us...
Introduction
Allow me some flexibility to be creative here.
When talking about 'character types', there is a lot of potential material to absorb and integrate.
For example, we have today's diagnostic category of 'OCD' -- Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Do we stick to this diagnostic category as it currently stands or do we work with it and look for 'finer types of OCD distinctions'? And what is the connection -- if there is any -- between this diagnostic category and older Freudian diagnostic categories? Let us see where we can go with this...
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1. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
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1.a. Obsessive–compulsive disorder
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search
"OCD" redirects here. For other uses, see OCD (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Obsessive–compulsive personality disorder.
Obsessive–compulsive disorder
Classification and external resources
ICD-10 F42.
ICD-9 300.3
DiseasesDB 33766
MeSH D009771
Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce anxiety, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing anxiety, or by a combination of such thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions). Symptoms may include repetitive hand-washing; extensive hoarding; preoccupation with sexual or aggressive impulses, or with particular religious beliefs. Checking things such as door knobs frequently, as well as counting, aversion to odd numbers, and nervous habits, such as opening a door and closing it a certain number of times before one enters or leaves a room, are also symptoms. Not all OCD suffers have the same symptoms and the extremity of the symptoms varies from person to person. These symptoms can be alienating and time-consuming, and often cause severe emotional and economic loss. The acts of those who have OCD may appear paranoid and come across to others as psychotic. However, OCD sufferers generally recognize their thoughts and subsequent actions as irrational, and they may become further distressed by this realization.
OCD is the fourth-most common mental disorder and is diagnosed nearly as often as asthma and diabetes mellitus.[1] In the United States, one in 50 adults has OCD.[2] The phrase "obsessive–compulsive" has become part of the English lexicon, and is often used in an informal or caricatured manner to describe someone who is meticulous, perfectionistic, absorbed in a cause, or otherwise fixated on something or someone.[3] Although these signs may be present in OCD, a person who exhibits them does not necessarily have OCD, and may instead have obsessive–compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), an autism spectrum disorder, or no clinical condition. Multiple psychological and biological factors may be involved in causing obsessive–compulsive syndromes.
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1.b. Obsessive–compulsive personality disorder
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search
Not to be confused with Obsessive–compulsive disorder.
Obsessive–compulsive personality disorder
Classification and external resources
ICD-10 F60.5
ICD-9 301.4
MeSH D003193
Personality
disorders
Cluster A (odd)
Paranoid · Schizoid
Schizotypal
Cluster B (dramatic)
Antisocial · Borderline
Histrionic · Narcissistic
Cluster C (anxious)
Avoidant · Dependent
Obsessive-compulsive
Not specified
Depressive
Passive–aggressive
Sadistic · Self-defeating
Obsessive–compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) is a personality disorder which involves an obsession with perfection, rules, and organization. People with OCPD may feel anxious when they perceive that things are not right. This can lead to routines and rules for ways of doing things, whether for themselves or their families.
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2. The Freudian 'Anal' Personality
The Freudian conception -- and labelling -- of the 'anal' personality has become sufficiently popularized today that it has entered into the day-to-day language of many lay people...
Parsimonious, punctual, 'tight-assed', righteous, obstinate, cheap, tight with money, tight with rules and regulations, conservative in thinking... -- these are the usual characteristics associated with the 'anal' personality...with many or most of these characteristics associated with the present diagnostic categories of 'OCD' and/or 'OCPD'...which extend to such obsessive-compulsions, as constantly locking and re-locking doors (or 'checking' and 'double-checking' and 'triple-checking' and 'multi-checking to make sure that the person 'got it right'...), obsessive-compulsive counting, hoarding....
We have to be careful here however because a mixture of diagnostic categories and sub-categories start to enter into -- and potentially confuse -- the 'anal' diagnostic picture of the personality...
We have to go back to Freud's original perceived 'etiology' (or 'cause') of the 'anal' personality which he took back to 'toilet-training' and his picture of the obstinate, 'tight-assed' child who, when put on the toilet, 'won't poop'...
Now we can challenge the 'logic' of Freud's perceived etiology of this evolving network of 'anal' characteristics where a person later 'holds onto his or her money' as if he or she is/was 'still holding onto her poop' in the process of 'defying' his or her toilet-trainer'...
Indeed, we can say that one of the first 'childhood attitudes of defiance' -- i.e., against toilet training and one's toilet trainer -- is simply a forecaster, a prognosticator, of much, much more of the same type of defiance and righteousness to come...a lifelong habit of 'obstinance' relative to protecting one's own ideas, rules, regulations, values... like a bulldog in the face of other competing authority figures and/or other people with a much less stubborn, righteous willpower to 'hold on tight with might'...the hallmark of the 'anal' personality...perhaps describing good old Sigmund Freud himself to a 'T'...lots of 'body and/or character armour', lots of 'holding in'...holding in poop, holding in emotions, holding in desire...often an 'implosive' (silent) temper -- and a silent, rejecting, abandoment mentality without necessarily any outward 'explosion' of emotional anger and/or rage that would give people -- and particularly 'the rejected one' -- the opportunity to forecast and see the rejecting abandoment coming...like an 'Anti-Stealth Radar Jet'...you don't know what's hit you until long after it has hit you...
Now there are anal personalities with 'lightning fast, hair-trigger tempers' defending the righteously and/or the narcissistically threatened, a significant variation on a theme to be contrasted with the perhaps 'more standard' version of the anal personality with his or her 'holding in process, hold on tight for dear life, to be in control, not to lose control...because to lose control is perhaps the ultimate fear...a fear of self and/or social chaos, anarchy, hedonism, Dionysianism...' ...The bi-polar nemesis of the standard 'Apollonian, righteous, uptight anal-conservative personality' is either the 'libidinous Dionysian Hedonist' and/or the 'Apollonian, anti-libidinous, anal-explosive, rebel and/or anarchist'...
Here we are seeing the sub-distinction in two different types of 'anal' personalities between the 'anal conservative' personality and the 'anal-liberal' personality, between the 'anal-retentive' personality and the 'anal explosive' personality, between the type of person who 'wants to be in control' vs. the type of person who 'hates to be controlled'...with the common feature of both being that they both absolutely feel the need to 'righteously have their own way'... Both 'anal types' are for the most part 'anti-libidinous' -- at least as far as the dominance of their 'anal traits' -- unless or until 'libidinous features' such as 'anal-narcissism' (a combination of righteousness and narcissism that can lead into sexuality...) and/or 'anal sadism' (a combination of righteousness, narcissism, and sadism leading into sexuality...) start to seep into the personality picture...
3. Libido
The definition of 'libido' was a contentious point between Freud and Jung, Freud opting for a rather strict definition of libido meaning 'sexual energy' whereas Jung preferring the more general definition of libido meaning 'life energy'. I prefer Freud's definition which does not mean that I believe in Freud's 'reductionistic' principle of ever form of human motivation boiling down to 'sexual energy'... Other motivating forces can be basically listed almost endlessly such as: narcissism, power, revenge, money, altruism, caring, love, generosity, nurturing, freedom, justice, righteousness....
Freud's bi-polar distinction between 'life' (eros) and 'death' (thanatos) instinct (I prefer the term 'impulse' to 'instinct') has some advantages to my way of thinking although I view the 'life impulse' as primary and the 'death impulse' as secondary compensation to the perception and feeling of 'thwarted life energy'...
In this regard, similar to Freud's view of things, libido can 'mix' and integrate with either eros (life energy) and/or thanatos (death energy)...
And that is where we will leave things today...
-- dgb, Aug 5th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
