Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder Defensive Structure

continue

OCPD (Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder) defenses are intellectualization, isolation of affect, undoing, reaction formation, displacement, and regression. These defenses are used to control anxiety at all costs with the heavy price of personal constriction (McCullough & Maltsberger, Gabbard & Atkinson, editors, 1996, p. 1001). This allows individuals with OCPD to appear deliberate and poised. However, they must manage the internal turmoil of their unresolved struggle between obedience and defiance which threatens to upset the balance they have so carefully developed. They must control against both external eruption of their anger and the internal disruption of emotions and impulses:

• The external expression of hostility and aggression can be managed by finding and allying with punitive authority figures. Individuals with OCPD employ a strategy of rewarding and granting security to those in power to gain their respect and protection. They can then justify venting their own hostile impulses toward their subordinates and gain support from authorities at the same time. Much of OCPD self-righteous morality reflects the same process. These individuals also employ undoing as a means to expiate themselves from unacceptable behavior and return to the goodwill of those in authority. [Undoing is the defining defense for individuals with OCPD; they undo with actions that have an unconscious meaning of atonement and/or magical protection (McWilliams, 1994, p. 284).] Nevertheless, OCPD conformity and propriety are facades to avoid disapproval and punishment. Internally, these individuals remain defiant.

• Internal impulses are controlled through the use of identification and sublimation. Sublimation allows unacceptable hostility to be expressed in socially acceptable ways through occupations such as judge, police officer, soldier, or surgeon. Individuals with OCPD can also be fierce and controlling parents as a means of camouflaging their hostility.

• Keeping hostile impulses in check can also be accomplished with the use of reaction formation and isolation. Ingratiating and obsequious OCPD behavior, when others are normally frustrated and angry, may be traced to a reaction formation of their own rebellious urges. They bind their defiance and anger so tightly that the opposite behavior emerges. Individuals with OCPD also compartmentalize or isolate their emotional response to situations. They block or neutralize feeling responses that would embarrass them or elicit disapproval from others (Millon, 1981, pp. 217-228).

Individuals with OCPD (Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder) attempt to not recognize the contradictions between their impulses and their behavior. They do this by restricting self-awareness and avoiding introspection. Not only do they accept authority-based demands and expectations; they believe them to be right. This can often bring these individuals institutional commendation and support. These rewards serve to reinforce their inclination toward self-righteousness and obedience (Millon, 1981, p. 226).

Stone (1993, p. 347) notes that individuals with OCPD live in the future (compared to the Cluster B individuals who live mostly in the present). They are obsessed with foreseeing all dangers and possible mistakes. Their behavior has the defensive quality of warding off parental or authority figure's anger by double-checking that no mistakes have been made (Stone, 1993, p. 347).

There are many service providers who rely on the same defensive patterns as do individuals with OCPD. They are also likely to overvalue order and correctness. Without awareness of this on the part of service providers, they are likely to collude with the OCPD clients' defenses; this is a common problem and it always impoverishes the treatment (McCullough & Maltsberger, Gabbard & Atkinson, editors, 1996, p. 1002).

next: Diagnostic Criteria and Personality Profile for OCPD

top . pages 1 2 3 4 5 . send to friend . personality disorders site map

Reviewed: 04/2006