Psychology of obsession

The definition of obsession is: the inability of a person to stop thinking about a particular topic or feeling a certain emotion without a high amount of anxiety. When obsessed, an individual continues the obsession in order to avoid the consequent anxiety. (1). There are different types of obsessions. It is categorized into two subtypes: autogenous obsessions and reactive obsessions. Differences between these two subtypes are different in terms of identifiability of their evoking stimuli, subjective experiences, contents, and subsequent cognitive processes. I will talk about fixation, obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) and obsessive love.

Fixation - Fixation refers to a persistent focus of the id’s pleasure-seeking energies on an earlier stage of psychosexual development. A fixation occurs when an issue or conflict in a psychosexual stage remains unresolved, leaving the individual focused on this stage and unable to move to the next. (2) For example if the child fixed in phallus stage, in his grown-up life he can have a big lack of self esteem. Why does fixation classified as obsession? Because it is the state in which an individual becomes obsessed with an attachment to another person, being or object. And of course it might lead to OCD.

OCD - Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, OCD, is an anxiety disorder and is characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions). Repetitive behaviors such as hand washing, counting, checking, or cleaning are often performed with the hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them go away. Performing these so-called "rituals," however, provides only temporary relief, and not performing them markedly increases anxiety (3). For example there is a woman in America which is obsessed with thoughts that her home will burn for a fault in the electrical system. So her ritual is to check all electronic gadgets before she is going from home. After locking the door she doubts if they are all turned off. Then she is coming back. So going out from home lingers about 3 hours, because she is coming back all the time. Effective treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder are already available, and research is yielding new, improved therapies that can help most people with OCD, but in hard cases OCD can be just mitigated and but not treated absolutely.

Obsessive love - is a form of love where one person is emotionally obsessed with another (4). Obsessive lovers believe that only the person they fixate on can make them feel happy and fulfilled. Also obsessed person doesn’t accept if their partners are happy then they aren’t. it affects not only patient, but also all people around them, especially the loved ones. Obsessed people become very emotional and physical related to their love object. It is possible that other person even don’t know about other side love. Obsessive love can lead to dangerous consequences, so Extreme like stalking, rape, and murder, among other things. There was an example in United States that man killed the president, because he decided that it is the way to be noticed by his love. There are 4 phases in this disorder: the first one is attraction phase. 2^nd – anxious phase. Then leads to the obsessive phase and the last one – destructive phase. It is very hard to cure and it’s almost impossible to do without psychotherapist.

In conclusion I could say, that there are much more obsessions. Most of them are parts of OCD. They can be episodic or lifelong, funny or disastrous, the most important thing to notice them and try to find the cure

(1) - http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Obsession

(2) - http://psychology.about.com/od/findex/g/def_fixation.htm

(3) - http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd/index.shtml

(4) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive_love