Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder is diagnosed when you have a preoccupation with cleanliness, orderliness, neatness and perfection in general. People with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder tend to be high achievers, especially in the sciences and other intellectually demanding fields. Unlike obsessivecompulsive disorder, people with the personality disorder do not suffer from unwanted obsessions and behaviour.

People with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder often have a formal demeanour, are extremely verbose and lack a sense of humour. The obsessivecompulsive person tends to have poor social skills. Their relationships are superficial and controlled and they are uncomfortable with their emotions.

Symptoms of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder include:

• Being preoccupied with rules, details, order, organisation and schedules 
•  Extreme perfectionism, in that you are unable to finish a project if it is not perfect enough
• Devoted to work to a point where it interferes with leisure and friendships 
• Inflexible about matters such as morality, ethics or values 
• Unable to discard worn out and old objects despite a lack of sentimental value 
• Difficulty with delegating tasks 
• See money as something to be hoarded 
• Being rigid and stubborn

Those with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder tend to have had childhoods in which they were over controlled and had to conform to strict standards of behaviour and performance. They were likely to have been praised infrequently and punished often. They would have had to learn how to behave to avoid punishment and what to do to attract praise. Therefore they learned to stick by rigid rules and restrictions.