![Dermatophagia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Dermatophagia.jpg)
Compulsive behavior is defined as performing an action persistently and repetitively. Compulsive behaviors could be an attempt to make obsessions go away.
The act is usually a small, restricted and repetitive behavior, yet not disturbing in a pathological way. Compulsive behaviors are a need to reduce apprehension caused by internal feelings a person wants to abstain from or control. A major cause of compulsive behavior is said to be
obsessive–compulsive disorder
Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental and behavioral disorder in which an individual has intrusive thoughts and/or feels the need to perform certain routines repeatedly to the extent where it induces distress or impairs general ...
(OCD).
[(1996). Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Decade of the Brain. National Institutes of Health.] "The main idea of compulsive behavior is that the likely excessive activity is not connected to the purpose to which it appears directed." There are many different types of compulsive behaviors including
shopping
Shopping is an activity in which a customer browses the available goods or services presented by one or more retailers with the potential intent to purchase a suitable selection of them. A Retail#Shopper profiles, typology of shopper types ha ...
,
hoarding
Hoarding is a behavior where people or animals accumulate food or other items.
Animal behavior
''Hoarding'' and ''caching'' are common in many bird species as well as in rodents. Most animal caches are of food. However, some birds will a ...
,
eating
Eating (also known as consuming) is the ingestion of food, typically to provide a heterotrophic organism with energy and to allow for growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive — carnivores eat other animals, herbi ...
,
gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...
,
trichotillomania
Trichotillomania (TTM), also known as hair-pulling disorder or compulsive hair pulling, is a mental disorder characterized by a long-term urge that results in the pulling out of one's own hair. A brief positive feeling may occur as hair is remov ...
and
picking skin,
itching
Itch (also known as pruritus) is a sensation that causes the desire or reflex to scratch. Itch has resisted many attempts to be classified as any one type of sensory experience. Itch has many similarities to pain, and while both are unpleasan ...
,
checking,
counting
Counting is the process of determining the number of elements of a finite set of objects, i.e., determining the size of a set. The traditional way of counting consists of continually increasing a (mental or spoken) counter by a unit for every ele ...
, washing,
sex
Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones ( ova, of ...
, and more. Also, there are cultural examples of compulsive behavior.
Disorders in which it is seen
Addiction
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use o ...
and
obsessive–compulsive disorder
Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental and behavioral disorder in which an individual has intrusive thoughts and/or feels the need to perform certain routines repeatedly to the extent where it induces distress or impairs general ...
(OCD) feature compulsive behavior as core features.
Addiction
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use o ...
is simply a compulsion toward a
rewarding stimulus
The reward system (the mesocorticolimbic circuit) is a group of neural structures responsible for incentive salience (i.e., "wanting"; desire or craving for a reward and motivation), associative learning (primarily positive reinforcement and clas ...
. Whereas in OCD, a compulsion is a facet of the disorder. The most common compulsions for people with OCD are washing and checking.
While not all compulsive behaviors are addictions, some such as
compulsive sexual behavior
According to proponents of the concept, sexual addiction, also known as sex addiction, is a state characterized by compulsive participation or engagement in sexual activity, particularly sexual intercourse, despite negative consequences. The co ...
have been identified as
behavioral addiction
Behavioral addiction is a form of addiction that involves a compulsion to engage in a rewarding non- substance-related behavior – sometimes called a natural reward – despite any negative consequences to the person's physical, mental, social o ...
s.
Occurrence
About 50 million people in the world today appear to have some type of
obsessive-compulsive disorder. Affected people are often more secretive than other people with psychological problems, so the more serious psychological disorders are diagnosed more often. Many who exhibit compulsive behavior will claim it is not a problem and may endure the condition for years before seeking help.
Types
Shopping
Compulsive shopping is characterized by excessive shopping that causes impairment in a person's life such as financial issues or not being able to commit to a family. The prevalence rate for this compulsive behavior is 5.8% worldwide, and a majority of the people who are affected by this type of behavior are women (approximately 80%). There is no proven treatment for this type of compulsive behavior.
Hoarding
![Compulsive hoarding Apartment](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Compulsive_hoarding_Apartment.jpg)
Hoarding is characterized by excessive saving of possessions and having problems when throwing these belongings away. Major features of hoarding include not being able to use the capacity of one's living quarters efficiently, having difficulty moving throughout the home due to the massive amount of possessions, as well as having blocked exits that can pose a danger to the hoarder and their family and guests. Items that are typically saved by hoarders include clothes, newspapers, containers, junk mail, books, and craft items. Hoarders believe these items will be useful in the future or they are too sentimental to throw them away. Other reasons include fear of losing important documents and information and object characteristics.
Eating
Compulsive overeating is the inability to control one's amount of nutritional intake, resulting in excessive weight gain. This overeating is usually a
coping mechanism
Coping refers to conscious strategies used to reduce unpleasant emotions. Coping strategies can be cognitions or behaviours and can be individual or social.
Theories of coping
Hundreds of coping strategies have been proposed in an attempt to ...
to deal with issues in the individual's life such as
stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
. Most compulsive over-eaters know that what they are doing is not good for them. The compulsive behavior usually develops in early childhood. People who struggle with compulsive eating usually do not have proper coping skills to deal with the emotional issues that cause their overindulgence in food. They indulge in binges, periods of varying duration in which they eat and/or drink without pause until the compulsion passes or they are unable to consume any more. These binges are usually accompanied by feelings of
guilt
Guilt may refer to:
*Guilt (emotion), an emotion that occurs when a person feels that they have violated a moral standard
*Culpability, a legal term
*Guilt (law), a legal term
Music
*Guilt (album), ''Guilt'' (album), a 2009 album by Mims
*Guilt ( ...
and
shame
Shame is an unpleasant self-conscious emotion often associated with negative self-evaluation; motivation to quit; and feelings of pain, exposure, distrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness.
Definition
Shame is a discrete, basic emotion, d ...
about using food to avoid emotional stress. This compulsive behavior can have deadly side effects including, but not limited to,
binge eating
Binge eating is a pattern of disordered eating which consists of episodes of uncontrollable eating. It is a common symptom of eating disorders such as binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa. During such binges, a person rapidly consumes an exc ...
, depression, withdrawal from activities due to weight, and spontaneous dieting. Though this is a very serious compulsive behavior, getting treatment and a proper diet plan can help individuals overcome these behaviors.
In
Eating disorders
An eating disorder is a mental disorder defined by abnormal eating behaviors that negatively affect a person's physical or mental health. Only one eating disorder can be diagnosed at a given time. Types of eating disorders include binge eating ...
(like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa) person is preoccupied with weight, body and caloric intake. In this, there are certain behaviors, which are maladaptive and persistent and could be viewed as compulsive behaviors. For instance, restricting what the person eats, vomiting, abusing laxatives and over-exercising.
But if a person engages in such type of behaviors, he will see them as a necessary mechanism for controlling weight. He will not view these behaviors as problematic.
Binge eating may be considered as compulsive behaviors. In this, a person may realize that he is overeating and regret it after some time.
Gambling
Compulsive gambling is characterized by having the desire to gamble and not being able to resist said desires. The gambling leads to serious personal and social issues in the individual's life. This compulsive behavior usually begins in early adolescence for men and between the ages of 20-40 for women. People who have issues controlling compulsions to gamble usually have an even harder time resisting when they are having a stressful time in life. People who gamble compulsively tend to run into issues with family members, the law, and the places and people they gamble with. The majority of the issues with this compulsive behavior are due to lack of money to continue gambling or pay off debt from previous gambling. Compulsive gambling can be helped with various forms of treatment such as
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a psycho-social intervention that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression and anxiety disorders. CBT focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions (suc ...
,
Self-help
Self-help or self-improvement is a self-guided improvement''APA Dictionary of Physicology'', 1st ed., Gary R. VandenBos, ed., Washington: American Psychological Association, 2007.—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a subst ...
or
Twelve-step program
Twelve-step programs are international mutual aid programs supporting recovery from substance addictions, behavioral addictions and compulsions. Developed in the 1930s, the first twelve-step program, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), aided its members ...
s, and potentially medication.
Trichotillomania and skin picking
Trichotillomania
Trichotillomania (TTM), also known as hair-pulling disorder or compulsive hair pulling, is a mental disorder characterized by a long-term urge that results in the pulling out of one's own hair. A brief positive feeling may occur as hair is remov ...
is classified as a compulsive picking of hair of the body. It can be from any place on the body that has hair. This picking results in bald spots. Most people who have mild trichotillomania can overcome it via concentration and more self-awareness.
Those with compulsive
skin picking have issues with picking, rubbing, digging, or scratching the skin. These activities are usually to get rid of unwanted blemishes or marks on the skin. These compulsions also tend to leave
abrasions and irritation on the skin. This can lead to infection or other issues in healing. These acts tend to be prevalent in times of anxiety, boredom, or stress. Reviews recommend behavioral interventions such as
habit reversal training
Habit reversal training (HRT) is a "multicomponent behavioral treatment package originally developed to address a wide variety of repetitive behavior disorders".
Behavioral disorders treated with HRT include tics, trichotillomania, nail biting, th ...
and
decoupling.
Checking, counting, washing, and repeating
Compulsive checking can include compulsively checking items such as locks, switches, and appliances. This type of compulsion usually deals with checking whether harm to oneself or others is possible. Usually, most checking behaviors occur due to wanting to keep others and the individual safe; this condition is also known as
obsessive-compulsive behavior.
People with compulsive counting tend to have a specific number that is of importance in the situation they are in. When a number is considered significant, the individual has a desire to do the behavior such as wiping one's face off the number of times that is significant. Compulsive counting can include instances of counting things such as steps, items, behaviors, and mental counting.
Compulsive washing is usually found in individuals that have a fear of contamination. People that have compulsive hand washing behaviors wash their hands repeatedly throughout the day. These hand washings can be ritualized and follow a pattern. People that have problems with compulsive hand washing tend to have problems with chapped or red hands due to the excessive amount of washing done each day.
Compulsive repeating is characterized by doing the same activity multiple times over. These activities can include re-reading a part of a book multiple times, re-writing something multiple times, repeating routine activities, or saying the same phrase over and over.
Sexual behavior
This type of compulsive behavior is characterized by feelings, thoughts, and behaviors about anything related to sex. These thoughts have to be pervasive and cause problems in health, occupation, socialization, or other parts of life. These feelings, thoughts, and behaviors can include normal sexual behaviors or behaviors that are considered illegal and/or morally and culturally unacceptable. This disorder is also known as hypersexuality,
hypersexual disorder
Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder (CSBD), also known as hypersexual disorder, is a pattern of behavior involving intense preoccupation with sexual fantasies and behaviours that cause distress, are inappropriately used to cope with stress, canno ...
, nymphomania or sexual addiction.
Controversially, some scientists have characterized compulsive sexual behavior as
sexual addiction
According to proponents of the concept, sexual addiction, also known as sex addiction, is a state characterized by compulsive participation or engagement in sexual activity, particularly sexual intercourse, despite negative consequences. The con ...
, although no such condition is recognized by mainstream medical diagnostic manuals.
Talking
Compulsive talking goes beyond the bounds of what is considered to be a socially acceptable amount of talking.
The two main factors in determining if someone is a compulsive talker are talking in a continuous manner, only stopping when the other person starts talking, and others perceiving their talking as a problem. Personality traits that have been positively linked to this compulsion include
assertiveness
Assertiveness is the quality of being self-assured and confident without being aggressive to defend a right point of view or a relevant statement. In the field of psychology and psychotherapy, it is a skill that can be learned and a mode of communi ...
, willingness to communicate, self-perceived communication competence, and
neuroticism
In the study of psychology, neuroticism has been considered a fundamental personality trait. For example, in the Big Five approach to personality trait theory, individuals with high scores for neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody ...
.
Studies have shown that most people who are talkaholics are aware of the amount of talking they do, are unable to stop, and do not see it as a problem.
See also
*
Obsessive–compulsive disorder
Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental and behavioral disorder in which an individual has intrusive thoughts and/or feels the need to perform certain routines repeatedly to the extent where it induces distress or impairs general ...
*
Addictive behavior#Compulsion vs addiction
*
Compulsive lying
Compulsive behavior is defined as performing an action persistently and repetitively. Compulsive behaviors could be an attempt to make obsessions go away. The act is usually a small, restricted and repetitive behavior, yet not disturbing in a pa ...
*
Twelve-step program
Twelve-step programs are international mutual aid programs supporting recovery from substance addictions, behavioral addictions and compulsions. Developed in the 1930s, the first twelve-step program, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), aided its members ...
References
Further reading
*
Sándor Ferenczi
Sándor Ferenczi (7 July 1873 – 22 May 1933) was a Hungarian psychoanalyst, a key theorist of the psychoanalytic school and a close associate of Sigmund Freud.
Biography
Born Sándor Fränkel to Baruch Fränkel and Rosa Eibenschütz, bo ...
, 'The Compulsion to Symmetrical Touching', ''Further Contributions to the Theory and Technique of Psychoanalysis'' (1926)
* A. J. Lewis, 'Obsessional Illness', in ''Inquiries in Psychiatry'' (1967)
* Rob Long, ''Obsessive Compulsive Disorder'' (2005)
* Lennard J. Davis, ''Obsession; A History'' (2008)
{{Authority control
Habit and impulse disorders