Cluster C: Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder Characteristics (Nursing)

00:01 Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

00:04 Well, this is a personality disorder.

00:06 It is also, obsessive compulsive also has a psychiatric disorder.

00:12 So let's separate these two.

00:14 This is obsessive compulsive personality disorder.

00:18 So it's a coping mechanism as part of a personality.

00:23 There's a rigidity because this person has learned throughout their early life that standards have to be met and they cannot be changed.

00:34 And if that is done differently, it causes enormous anxiety.

00:40 They will always be careful and rehearse their social responses.

00:46 They want to make sure that what they say is what is supposed to be said, and that it is said perfectly.

00:53 "Yes, ma'am." "No, sir." "Could you repeat that, sir?" "Dr. Marshall's telephone." It is very rigid.

01:03 They also have this goal-seeking behavior that sometimes is pretty self-defeating because it becomes obsessive excessive.

01:14 When you think of any of the personality disorders, none of them are within that normal curve.

01:22 You want to think of them all as being at that obsessive area where it interferes with their activities of daily living.

01:31 So in this case, it becomes very self-defeating to try and get into a relationship.

01:39 Because the goals are set, and they cannot be changed.

01:45 There is this obsession to make sure everything is exactly as it should be.

01:52 And then there's this added compulsion, I have to do something in order to make sure that this obsessive thought is going to be completed.

02:03 Remember, the obsession is a thought, the compulsion is a behavior.

02:07 So they have these standards.

02:10 And when they have these strict standards, it can't be done any other way.

02:17 I had someone who used to write and if they went over the margin even a little bit, they would take the full page that they had handwritten.

02:28 Just crunch it up and throw it away because it was no good anymore.

02:33 They failed, they failed to stay within those margins.

02:37 Also, they have this focus on perfection.

02:40 It has to be perfect or it is no good.

02:45 And I always like to say to people, "You never want perfect to be the enemy of good." We want to allow good to become better.

02:58 Once we have perfect.

03:00 Well, there's nothing better than that.

03:04 And there's always something better, there is no perfect.

03:07 So don't let perfect become the enemy of good.

03:13 A lot of patients like to hear that because it takes some of the anxiety away of you mean there isn't a perfect.

03:20 I don't have to be perfect in order to be loved.