Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder: A Detailed Analysis

This essay provides an analysis of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), drawing upon a case study from the movie 'Sleeping with the Enemy'. The author identifies characteristics of OCPD in the character Martin Burney, referencing the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. The essay explores symptoms like obsession with order, perfectionism, and excessive devotion to work, supported by examples from the movie. It delves into potential causes, including overprotective parenting and social influences. Furthermore, it discusses treatment approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), medication, and relaxation training. The essay also references relevant research articles to provide a comprehensive understanding of OCPD, including the impacts of perfectionism, personality disorders, and comorbid conditions on the disorder.

Running Head: OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE PERSONALITY DISORDER
Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder
Institution
Student name
Date

2
Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder
The author of this essay watched a movie titled ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’ 1991, 20th
Century fox production featuring Joseph Reuben as Martin Burney. The author observed Martin
Burney, a working-class married white male estimated to be in his late twenties or early thirties.
After carefully observing the identified character through the 57-minute clip, the author
concludes that Mr. Burney suffered from an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD).
On several instances, Mr. Burney exhibited the typical characteristics of the OCPD.
According to American Psychiatric Association (APA, 2013) individual suffering from this
condition shows an obsession with schedules, insignificant details, order, lists, or organization to
the extent that he loses focus of the key activity he is engaging in. This behavior is seen when
Burney suggestively hugs Laura who thinks that Burney wanted more sex. Instead, Martin orders
her to follow him to the bathroom while holding her by the hand while she trailed behind him.
Martin then compels his wife to figure out what could be a mess in the bathroom. Laura takes a
few quick glances around the room and notices that the bathroom linen was not perfectly aligned
and quickly fixes them. A patient suffering from OCPD exhibits characteristics of
disproportionate commitment to work at the expense of relaxation and family time (APA, 2013).
This is seen when Martin admits to Laura that despite being on holidays, he was engaged in
office work.
The APA (2013) further maintains that an individual may be said to be suffering from
OCPD if he is extremely conscientious, inflexible and, and scrupulous about issues to do with
ethics, standards, and morals. Confronted with the guilt of working while on vacation, Martin
goes overboard in his attempt to recompense for the mistake and tries to appear as if he is
concerned about his wife’s opinion when he asked her if she had forgiven him. According to
APA (2013), persons suffering from OCPD exhibit rigidity and are stubborn. Laura chooses a

3
Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder
white dress for the evening party, however, Burney passively suggests that his wife wears a
black dress despite seeing clearly that his wife was already dressed in white. All these incidences
point towards typical characteristics of persons with OCPD.
While speaking to the doctor near the sailboat, Martin recalls how his wife nearly
drowned some years back during her childhood and how she hated water and could not swim. It
is due to this past experience makes Martin occasionally take out Laura on a boat. This further
brings him out as rigid as he is unable to contend with his wife’s discomfort with mass waters.
While they were still talking with the doctor, Martin calls the doctor Laura’s friend despite Laura
saying that she did not know the doctor.
Being in a family setup, it is easy to single out the impact of family members specifically
Martin’s wife on the character of the former. At the party, Laura asks Martin, “Have I been
social long enough?” This shows that Laura has submitted herself to the arduous demands of her
husband. This situation only serves to add more demands to the patient making his condition to
worsen. As Liggett, Sellbom, and Carmichael (2017) observe, OCPD individuals rarely attain a
state of contentment from another person’s action even if all the evidence suggests otherwise.
OCPD is a long-lasting trend of preoccupation with control, perfectionism and minute
details that affects an individual’s ability to be efficient and flexible (APA, 2013). Its symptoms
include feelings of doubt, pedantry, excessive conscientiousness, checking, preoccupation with
particulars, stubbornness, extreme need to be punctual, being overwhelmingly parsimonious with
money, excessive devotion to work, caution, extreme adherence to morals, and hoarding of old
items (Dembo, 2014).
The most important feature in the diagnosis of OCPD is the manifestation of extreme
orderliness and accuracy at the expense of proficiency and suppleness. The APA developed a

4
Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder
DSM-5 check criterion for the diagnosis of this condition. According to this procedure, an
individual is said to be suffering from OCPD if exhibits at least four of the symptoms outlined in
the manual. The first and most common one being one’s obsession with minutiae and perfection
(Dimaggio et al., 2015).
There is no single particular identifiable cause for OCPD. However, theories point at
poor child raising and inappropriate responsiveness to the needs of a young one as the main
cause of the disorder (Wolfe & Patel, 2017). Persons with OCPD report having been brought up
by guardians who were overprotective and controlling (Wheaton & Pinto, 2017). Pinto (2016)
noticed that individuals with OCPD seem to have been abandoned by their guardians or harshly
scorned by their parents for the transgression of how minor the offense was. Subsequently, the
child is incapable of securely creating or expressing emotions of happiness, independent idea or
swiftness and starts to develop manifestations of OCPD as survival mechanisms for staying away
from authorities. Children brought up in this kind of environment, likewise are vent their
displeasure on their peers in that they might be ostensibly devoted and friendly to authorities, and
yet treat those they view as their inferiors cruelly. Hereditary correlations to OCPD are still
scrawny and have not been all around recorded. Social impacts may also have an impact on the
development of OCPD (Mike et al., 2018). That is, societies that are exceedingly authoritarian
may support certain practices that lead to the increased risk of OCPD.
For treatment, doctors take a three-layered approach which includes cognitive behavioral
therapy (CBT), medication and relaxation training. During CBT, the patient meets with a
psychiatrist on an organized schedule. These ordinary sessions include working with the
counselor to talk through any tension, stress, or unhappiness. An emotional health instructor may
urge the patient to put less attention on work and more accentuation on diversion, family, and

5
Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder
other relational connections. For medication, many doctors recommend selective serotonin
reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that reduces the anxiety that comes with the obsessive-compulsive
cycle. Relaxation training involves putting patients on periodic psychiatric therapy and support
groups that help them cope with the condition (Chamberlain et al., 2017).
In his article ‘The Ickiness Factor’, Dembo (2014) attempts to explore the impact of an
eccentric treatment strategies to obsessive-compulsive disorder. The article looks at the
possibility of combining the already-existing SSRI with traditional evidence-based alternatives
such as cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy as a treatment approach to the OCPD condition.
Since the disorder has no single known causative agent, there is a challenge in developing a
single treatment approach for the same. The author would use this knowledge to diversify his
remedial approaches for the OCPD provided these approaches are safe and evidence-based.
Could perfectionism and personality disorders be probable clairvoyants of OCPD
symptoms and interpersonal issues? This is the question Dimaggio et al. (2015) attempt to find
out in their research article titled ‘Perfectionism and Personality Disorders as Predictors of
Symptoms and Interpersonal Problems’. The researchers attempt to establish the linkage between
maladaptive perfectionism such as OCPD and various personality dysfunctions. They conclude
that there exist consistent scientific findings that gives a cue to the correlation between the two
aspects discussed. This knowledge is important to the author as it may reveal the existing gaps in
the research for OCPD. Gaps that the author will use to inspire interested researchers in the area
to explore further.
Lastly, the author looked at the works of Thamby, Abel and Khanna (2019) who studied
the part of various personality dysfunctions in obsessive-compulsive disorder. The trio avers that
several comorbid behavioral syndromes such as OCPD and schizotypical disorder have been

6
Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder
consistently linked to a poor course of sickness and response to treatment. With this in mind, the
author will not only rely on contemporary treatment procedures for OCPD patients but change
approaches for unresponsive OCPD patients suffering from other illnesses.
References

7
Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). New York. USA.
Chamberlain, S. R., Leppink, E. W., Redden, S. A., Stein, D. J., Lochner, C., & Grant, J. E.
(2017). Impact of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) symptoms in
Internet users. Annals of clinical psychiatry: official journal of the American Academy of
Clinical Psychiatrists, 29(3), 173. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
pmc/articles/PMC5540167/
Dembo, J. S. (2014). “The Ickiness Factor:” Case Study of an Unconventional Psychotherapeutic
Approach to Pediatric OCD. American journal of psychotherapy, 68(1), 57-79.Journal 2-
100. Retrieved from https://psychotherapy.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/
10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.2014.68.1.57
Dimaggio, G., Lysaker, P. H., Calarco, T., Pedone, R., Marsigli, N., Riccardi, I., & Paviglianiti,
A. (2015). Perfectionism and personality disorders as predictors of symptoms and
interpersonal problems. American journal of psychotherapy, 69(3), 317-330. Retrieved
from https://psychotherapy.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/appi.
psychotherapy.2015.69.3.317
Liggett, J., Sellbom, M., & Carmichael, K. L. (2017). Examining the DSM-5 Section III criteria
for obsessive-compulsive personality disorder in a community sample. Journal of
personality disorders, 31(6), 790-809. Retrieved from https://guilfordjournals.com/
doi/abs/10.1521/pedi_2017_31_281
Mike, A., King, H., Oltmanns, T.F. and Jackson, J.J., 2018. Obsessive, compulsive, and
conscientious? The relationship between OCPD and personality traits. Journal of
personality, 86(6), pp.952-972.

8
Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder
Pinto, A. (2016). Treatment of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. In Clinical handbook
of obsessive-compulsive and related disorders (pp. 415-429). Springer, Cham. Retrieved
from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jopy.12368
Thamby, Abel & Khanna, Sumant. (2019). The role of personality disorders in obsessive-
compulsive disorder. Indian Journal of Psychiatry. 61. 114. 10.4103/ psychiatry.
IndianJPsychiatry _526_18. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
330255952_The_role_of_personality_disorders_in_obsessive-compulsive_disorder
Wheaton, M. G., & Pinto, A. (2017). The role of experiential avoidance in obsessive–compulsive
personality disorder traits. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 8(4),
383. Retrieved from https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-29865-001
Wolfe, M. T., & Patel, P. C. (2017). Persistent and repetitive: Obsessive-Compulsive Personality
Disorder and self-employment. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 8, 125-137.
Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352673417300793