OCD or Obsessive-Compulsive Character?

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Abstract

The conception of OCD as a brain disease, as it is presented by Dr. Judith Rapoport, is refuted by clinical evidence. This evidence shows obsessive-compulsive symptoms to emerge from a variety of rigid, that is, rule-directed, character. All the well-known obsessive and compulsive symptoms can be derived from character of this sort, in particular from the special, rigid conscientiousness that is its central feature. Deficiencies in the psychoanalytic understanding of symptom formation weaken its case against the reductionistic conception of OCD.