Fears & Rituals

After going through 2 chapters (Anxiety and Stress chapters) preparing for my psychopathology on Monday, I started to get mentally sick already. Although, I came across this very interesting yet very twisted case study. Can you figure out the disorder this guy had?


Gary was a 26-year-old Caucasian carpenter who sought treatment for “terrible thoughts” about “perverse” sexual images that he “could not shake off.” These thoughts, which occurred nearly constantly throughout the day, were tormenting images of incest with his family members, particularly his mother. Gary realized that these intrusive thoughts were senseless and excessive, and he suffered extremes feelings of shame because of them. He tried to suppress his thoughts with numerous rituals, such as tensing all his muscles or walking in a certain way. His greatest fear was that he would become aroused by his sexual thoughts about his mother, and he developed extensive avoidance behavior. At first, he only avoided his mother, but in time he avoided all women and any activity that might be enjoyable to him and therefore arousing. Gary reported that he avoided all activities that elect the feeling of pleasure…even if they weren’t sexual. Gary also described contamination fears and cleaning rituals, reporting that he avoided public restrooms, and spent over 90 minutes a day washing his hands; but these contamination fears were not nearly as troubling to him as the sexual obsessions and related compulsions. He was convinced that his intrusive thoughts meant he was a bad person, and he would never have peace of mind as long as he had these intrusive thoughts.


So what kind of disorder does Gary had? It should be self-explanatory with all the keywords that were presented in the case study.

11 Responses to "Fears & Rituals"

adorra (visit their site)

I second ^

Delicately Realistic (visit their site)

OCD
And
something else.

The Solar Alchemist (visit their site)

p.s. on the post of the 2nd of Nov.
Money is the rute of all evil (don't you think that better :p)

Unknown (visit their site)

I think the better question is whether his mother's hot. I mean... maybe it's understandable.

Either way, who cares. The dude's a carpenter. I feel bad enough for him without the head-drama.

Anonymous (visit their site)

maybe thats how guys turn gay??! :P madrii madrii ..

teagirl (visit their site)

oh wow thats creepy..

Angelo (visit their site)

@Grenadine: Congratulations Grenadine for figuring out the name of the disorder first...a cookie will be sent via Fedex to your home very soon ^_^

@Adorra: Bravo Adorra *clap clap calp*

@Delicat: OCD is sufficient...excellent thinking :)

@Solar Alchemist: LOOOL...I dunno if the latter is a correct psychological term.

LOOOL, I will be dead by now if I said that because that means women would be equal to Evil.

@Bitzer (aka Bo): Hmmm, that's an interesting question...psychologists should have considered that...maybe he had strong desires being suppressed into the unconscious.

@Samboosa: You actually got it the other way around...if he was interested in his father, he might be gay or at least attracted to older men.

@Teagirl: Indeed! Let just hope we won't encounter these kinds of problems in the future.

One_Kuw (visit their site)

i think gray have some mental problems, or lack of behavior, hmmm but i think its a mental illness, or psychological, maybe he didnt find a girl on his type, put definetly its lack of behavior, no one slapped him in his face when he was young, Furthormore,i know a person who cannot order from a restaurent he always ask one of his friends, actually close friend, he is like " hey i am confused please help, i cant order i am hungry i want CHICKEN AND PASTA "
now i wanna ask you a question, the guy who always been asked to order the food for the confused person isnt he poor guy ????? because i feel sorry for him :p
and what about the guy who cannot choose his food when he is hungry :p
______

Angelo (visit their site)

@One_Kuw: Hey man, welcome to my blog. Well, it seems your "friend" is quite Co-dependent, and he cannot make any decisions (even minor ones) without consulting. It seems he lacks self-confident...and I think the psychodynamic therapy will work best for him since these kinds of problems usually starts in childhood. It might looks harmless now, but in the future (say when he decided to get married), the problem might result to some serious consequences.

Elijah (visit their site)

He's got the Oedipus Complex written all over him.

Funny, was thinking about this the other day and wondering if Freud took it to the extremes. After all Oedipus didn't know that she was his mother when he was L@&^##$ her.

Interesting though, I guess Freud knew what he was talking bout after all :P

Angelo (visit their site)

@Elijah: Yup yup...you got it right.
And as for Freud, I don't reject his theories completely...there are some truths in his words.