Obsessive Compulsion Personality Disorder

Introduction

Obsessive compulsion personality disorder (OCPO) is a personality disorder, depicted by the persistent nature of fixation to neatness, perfectionism, and control at the expense of convenient service delivery. Under this condition, the victims invoke efficiency by creating lists and programs, which allow them to organize and stick to the rules. In this regard, their level of organization and strictness to schedule makes them inefficient in the delivery of assigned tasks. Furthermore, their relations with other mates are complicated due to rigidity and formalness in making decisions. As a result, they receive less pleasure from association with other people since they cannot freely conform to genuine interests of groups (Bayer, 2000). Warren, the 47-year-old man who is married and has two children is experiencing the disorder. Based on his consistent involvement in plans that he never fulfills due to worry and search for perfection, it is a clear demonstration of disorder he suffers from. The recent plans he made for the family three months ago makes him anxious and fearful. Based on the past activities he had planned which were not successful, he anticipates the same outcome in the event. This behavior is contributed by the concern and need for excellence through control. As a result, he is distressed, which has interfered with his occupational and family roles with regard to social relationship. Having evaluated the effects of OCPD on Warren’s life, there is need to understand the basis, signs, and treatment approaches of the disorder.

Causes, Symptoms and Features

The previous research of the OCPD indicates that its causes are associated with the nature of DNA within individuals’ genes. Under most studies, there are findings that male individuals with the Dopamine receptor D3 genes have high likelihood of developing the disorder. Despite the genetic components of an individual contribution to the vulnerability of the disorder, there are other environmental factors, which contribute in this regard. Some of the environmental factors include the psychosomatic disturbances experienced during upbringing and the health status of the victim. The traumas that most victims encounter at childhood include physical or emotional torture and sexual abuse (Dobbert, 2007). With this exposure, the victims develop early symptoms by secluding themselves and focusing on different paths of life without seeking assistance from others.

The OCPD have serious effects on the victim during early life. The patients usually neglect their conditions by establishing techniques that suppress the efforts of strenuous works. When identifying the symptoms of the disorder, psychological practitioners consider the nature of patients’ obsession with their activities. The tidiness that patients exhibit in their work illustrates their obsession. The OCPD features exhibit the characteristics of overemphasis on minor things under short time. With the adoption of obsessive features, patients use them to minimize the effects of anger and tension. Regardless of their efforts to counter the symptoms, tension and worry remains in their lives before its impacts become severe. The nature of obsession revealed by patients consists of record formulations, programs and diligence (Alarco%u0301n, 1998). 

The manner in which the patients regard other people’s activities due to the disorder depicts negative perspectives, which hampers the relationships between them. This is contributed by the inflexibility and strictness among the patients, which affect their interpersonal relations. The lack of inhibition is one of the prevalent features depicted by the patients, which make them violent and inconsiderate during social interactions. This makes them lose focus due to the suppressed depression until the effects of the status explodes. At this point, they are considered patients with the need of treatment. In addition, when the patients experience pressure due to depression, they might consider committing suicides that contribute to the psychiatric mortality rates (Corey, 1996).

During the examination of the OCPD in a diagnostic process, the Diagnostic and Statistical manual of mental Disorders fourth edition (DSM IV) is used. The guide assists psychiatrists to identify the nature of the psychological disorder affecting an individual. For an individual who exhibits OCPD, the DSM IV dictates that a person must meet the conditions prevalent in General Personality Disorder (GPD). Through this procedure, the characteristics of the patient, which comply with the features of the OCPD, must be satisfied. Essentially, the diagnosis assesses the possible cause of the disorder exhibited by the patient and attempts to relate it to the features of OCPD. As a result, one can identify the real conditions and determine the possible treatment for the disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).

Some of the most crucial elements of the OCPD disorder relates to the feature demonstrated by the patient in his or her normal life. To fulfill these conditions, a patient should portray characteristics of pessimism and caution in their activities. In addition, they should demonstrate certain features of fixation to trivial details, tight schedules, list making, and rigid rules. As a result, the patients will value perfectionism in their undertakings, causing inefficiencies in service delivery and failure to meet time limits (Alarco%u0301n, 1998). In this regard, patients will be conscious and preoccupied with the production process lacking time to associate with others. Over a long period, the interpersonal relationships are affected and the depression reaches its peak. This triggers reluctance and unwelcomed imaginations. For a patient with such kind of attributes, a psychiatrist can conclude by use of the DSM IV that the patient meets all the features of the OCPD and, thus, the need to recommend treatment exists.

Associated features and Disorders

Since the schedules and rules made by the affected individual holds their minds rigid, the process of making decision becomes painful and complicated. As a result, the process leads to time wastage and inappropriate solutions. In this regard, individuals with OCPD become undecided on the manner to which they should carry on their tasks or the order to accomplish it. Consequently, they are more likely to get irritated with the prevailing conditions such as the lack of ability to control situations in the environment. This form of irritation and anger accumulates resulting in long-term depression, which affects the relationship that they have with their immediate counterparts. With the consideration of warren’s case, the fact that he anticipates the possibility of disappointments from the vacation causes him to worry and have anxiety over the whole event. In this case, the previous plans that he had planned for the family seemed to have followed the same criteria, which has resulted in build up doubt and anxiety in his life. For any problem that results on the event, he has no control over the search of solution but attempts to engage in other events to counter the deficiency of the failed event (Dobbert, 2007).   

Individuals with OCPD have difficulty in associating with other people since there manner of expressing affection is controlled and lacks flexibility. As a result, they have difficulty associating with people who are emotionally expressing, as they cannot meet the level of their affection. This emanates from the formalness and rigidity in some situations where other people could be deriving fun and pleasure. In this situation, they withdraw their contributions in the group until they are sure that their contributions are appropriately perfect. They are always preoccupied with perfectionism, orderliness, and logic, thus becoming intolerant to other people’s behavior. Consequently, they seldom value their colleagues efforts and inflexible when dealing with new problems.

The analysis of individuals with anxiety disorders and other personality disorders related to social phobia have been associated with their prevalence to the OCPD. This implies that such people have high likelihood of exposing themselves to depression, resulting from the non-satisfaction in the prevailing environment. From these incidents, they withdraw themselves engaging in secretive and formal activities in certain manners. This contradicts flexibility and compromise in their operation. Based on these facts, many disorders of ‘type A’ may result in OCPD. Due to this, the individuals preoccupy themselves with list-making, schedules, control and perfectionism, which makes them anxious and not accomplish anything they desire (Dobbert, 2007).

Specific Cultures and Gender Features

During the process of diagnosis of the OCPD, the psychotherapists need to place much importance to the importance to the cultural background of the patient. Some of the cultural behaviors entail habits, customs, or interpersonal relationship, which influence the behaviors of the victims of the disorder. This implies that the deviation in cultures based on the measure of prominence on efforts and output does not clearly demonstrate the prevalence of the disorder. As a result, the individual groups’ behavior varies and the vulnerability of the disorder is randomly spread across all cultures. In addition, it is impossible to make conclusion about the vulnerability of one culture to the disorder. The detail examination of the disorder depicts that most men are vulnerable to the disorder due to huge pressure they are exposed to. In this regard, the manner in which men conduct themselves in services may give hint of the likely disorders they exhibit (Alarco%u0301n, 1998).    

Prevalence

Based on the statistical analysis of the prevalence to the disorder, it indicates that about one percent of the society section are likely to get expose the disorder. For the psychologically disturbed individuals, their vulnerability to the disorder is approximately seven with a margin of negative or positive three (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). This shows the adversity of the condition and the need to adopt appropriate measures to counter it in the society.

Perspective

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) entails the administering of remedy to psychologically traumatized individuals by a goal-oriented and orderly process. This form of therapy should be adopted for the disorder. Some of the key areas that require addressing include emotional problems and challenges of behaviors. Since OCPD exhibits different forms of emotional problems and behavioral weakness, this form of psychotherapy is essential to counter its severe conditions. In this regard, the method is effective in relation to treatment of temper problems, worries, and character disorders. In the process of administering treatment, cognitive behavior therapy adopts several systematic methods to establish the real conditions of the patient. Some of the significant constituents undergo scrutiny to determine the possible causes of the problem and their impacts. With this study, a psychotherapist can administer the right form of therapy that will solve the depression and environmental challenges faced by the patient. The phases adopted include assessment, re-conceptualization, skills achievement and relevance training, generalization, maintenance and follow-up assessment (Bayer, 2000).

In the assessment stage, the psychotherapist attempts to unravel the prevailing conditions and the patient’s background history. During this stage, the DSM IV is used to establish the OCPD in the patient. Based on the conditions portrayed by the patient, one can establish the nature of the disorder and administer appropriate treatment. After establishing the nature of the disorder such as OCPD, the treatment commences. In this regard, one of the most effective treatment methods is the CBT (Corey, 1996). After the assessment, the patient undergoes a re-conceptualization process where reality is presented with the appropriate skills of managing the situation. Subsequently, skills are imparted to the patient in consideration to their relevance to the disorder. The patient is then taught how to apply the skills in managing the pervasive orderliness, perfectionism, and rigidity. This helps the patients to improve their social interactions. Consequently, the skills importance is generalized as well as the consideration of the need to maintain. This assists them in attempting the new problems. Finally, after the exposure to the treatment report on the behavior of the patient is done to ascertain the value of remedy.

Similarly, according to Freudian approach of addressing the disorder, we apply psychotherapy. In this case, the disorder is attributed to be amongst the anal-retentive challenges that emanates during early childhood. In this regard, Freud asserts that OCPD results from childhood experience, due to the nature of the environment that one is exposed to. Some of the environments, which contribute to the disorder, include physical and mental torture at childhood. Based on these conditions, the affected individuals begin to withdraw themselves from groups because of fear and anxiety. This form of withdrawal leads to build up depression over time, thus, the individuals lack interpersonal relationship. As a result, the built up the severity of OCPD is realized when the patient is recommended for treatment. When adopting the psychotherapy, the patient is exposed to guidance and counseling from a psychotherapist. In this process, various form of psychotherapy such as psychodrama and psychoanalysis are adopted. This helps the patient recognize their actual problems and seek for the best way of dealing with them in the actual life circumstances (Alarco%u0301n, 1998).        

Treatment Methods

The treatment of OCPD initiates from the ascertainment of the conditions of the patient. In this case, appropriate procedure is followed to fully administer the appropriate remedy. This involves the evaluation of the patient’s gender and cultural values, which dictates the determination of the appropriate method. Due to this, it ensures the success of the process. This implies that after the establishment of the disorder, the treatment commences. Depending on the severity of the disorder, the possible means of treating OCPD will include therapy, medication, behavior modification, and cognitive restructuring (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).

For the therapy, the patient receives support from the psychiatric therapist who applies the counter measures to the attributes exhibited by the patient. In this regard, the therapist together with the patient is guided and encourage regarding the manner to adjust their lifestyles that will contribute to the reduction of the misery and nervousness. This implies that the individual will be assessed from his history and appropriate advices given, which will assist them, maneuver in future events. This changes one’s view and regard to other people. As a result, the individual adjusts to normal leaving reducing the level of depression (Dobbert, 2007).

After the establishment of the OCPD, the patient is exposed to medication as one of the treatment. Under this case, a clinician administers anti-depressants that will reduce the level of depression as well as anxiety for the victim. Other medications will also be given that reduces the involvement in strenuous activities and anti-social behavior. With this medication, the individual is exposed to the assistance of the physiotherapist with regard to their behavior.

In the case of behavioral therapy, the patients’ features are established to ensure that proper approaches are adopted. In this regard, the methods attempt to impart the essential manners while eradicating the inappropriate conducts of the depression and patient’s attitude to change. The OCPD patient features will be addressed while explaining the manner in which behavioral features such as orderliness, perfectionisms, trivial details, and schedules are detrimental to the emotional and mental stability (Corey, 1996). Behavioral features such as flexibility, social interaction, apathetic and efficiency will be recommended for the patient to adopt and practice while being monitored to establish his or her mastery. The patient, having fully complied with the needs of the change, undergoes a test to apply the same skills in the field or at occupational places. At this point, the patient will explain whether the level of depression, anxiety, and flexibility has been achieved. This is based on the operation standards where patients should move from erratic standards to efficiency and social interactivity (Dobbert, 2007).

While cognitive restructuring is also applicable, many factors need consideration when adopting this approach depending on the condition of the patient. For an OCPD patient, a psychotherapist should employ the features exposed in order for the patient to make an appropriate procedure to handle the case. If the patient portrays the sense of fixation to one’s occupational goals without regarding the importance of place, as signs of OCPD, the psychotherapist adopts the reconstruction of the features that the patient characteristic portray to be missing. In this case, appropriate features like social interactivity, flexibility, convenience, and time management are imparted to the patient. The patient is exposed to the relevance of the features that manage the gloominess and obstinacy of the disorder. For the collective interactivity to be improved, a lot of emphasis is made on the good relationship between the patient and the surrounding people. As a result, this will serve in the interest of the patient through alignment to the appropriate conduct and mindset to other people reducing the effects of despair and unsteadiness (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).

Personal Insight

In my opinion, OCPD is a prevalent condition that progresses from early childhood and affects the personality of an individual in his or her lifetime in relation to depression and anti-social behavior. This phenomenon usually occurs due to the emotional and mental abuses received from parents, which alters the normal growth of a child. As a result, it is essential to ensure and understand the need for moderately providing for the children to guarantee elimination of the personality disorder. In the case of warren, he displays a sense of exaggeration of his physical abilities by attaching importance to every minor undertaking he makes while undermining assistance from his family. Some of the features illustrated by the Warren show a sense of inflexibility and secretiveness, which makes him inefficient in both family and occupational tasks. As a result, it has worsened his level of depression. In this regard, multiple approaches have to be considered during the diagnosis of his condition to establish the dexterity of the disorder, which guarantees the appropriate treatment.

Therefore, the diagnosis should entail various methods such as DSM and differential diagnosis, which ensures that the patients’ disorders are clearly established. With this approach, the right treatment through psychotherapy can be applied to solve the dexterity of the disorder. During treatment, a patient will be challenged with various problems in life that represent his real life and means in which such situations should be addressed. Through this process, the patient will realize the limitations that existed in their life and look for ways to address such situations. When the patient feels the capacity to face the real situations in the field, he is given chances to apply the learned skills. This assists in minimizing and countering of the inefficiencies and rigidity associated with the struggle to enhance interaction. If the proper approaches of treatment process are fully accomplished, the chances of the affected individual leading a normal life are noticeably high.