Posted: Apr 19, 2016 9:25 am
Fallible wrote:Of course, OCD is not 'shooting for imaginary perfection', this is the colloquial usage. It's an anxiety disorder characterised by obsessive thoughts and the compulsions performed to keep them and the resulting anxiety at bay.
Yes, understood. If I were counseling someone who wanted help with that problem, yes, I'd try to figure out what the anxiety was, but I'd also try to figure out why the response to anxiety wasn't more modulated. Everybody experiences anxiety. Only a few respond in a way that you can diagnose technically as OCD, unless we are all subject to that. Then it isn't a 'disorder'. If it's the endocrine system itself, you'd suspect genetics, wouldn't you? Or maybe not exclusively, eh? So, we've explained nothing.
Don't mistake my tone. I really want you to explain this, if you can. If you can't, and it's going to go case by case, don't pretend to be an expert. I don' t know how 'compulsions performed' keep 'anxiety at bay'. Activity fills up the time available, if you know your Parkinson Laws. This is why I favor the existentialist approach, because available time is all anyone starts out with.