OCD rituals vs religious rituals
Quote:
> > Everybody has their favorite rituals to make them less
> >anxious, and the more anxious you are, the more you need ritual (think
> >of all those OCD people with their many rituals). If you were an
> >orthodox Jew you'd be decreasing your anxiety with complicated rituals
> >to separate the meat from the dairy. The Diamonds, who are Jewish, are
> >obviously comfortable with this kind of eating ritual, although they
> >ritualize a different separation. Fine. I'm happy for them. But it's
> >no more science than washing your hands every hour.
> > Steve Harris, M.D.
> This is something that has interested me for several years, having
> mild OCD symptoms and being somewhat agnostic regarding religion: the
> relationship between the rituals in OCD and the rituals in religion.
> Anyone have any comments on this? Just as an example, would high
> doses of SSRIs used to treat OCD have any effect on the amount of
> rituals a religious person might perform? Have any pet scans or
> similar studies been done on the relationship between the rituals in
> OCD and those in highly religious people? I notice that many of my
> OCD symptoms seem to be motivated by things of an irrational or
> "superstitious" nature.
I think there is a lot of differences between the rituals of OCD and
those of religious ceremony.
OCD rituals are ego-dystonic, that is intrusive, unwanted, seen as
irrational to the person experiencing them, but neccessary to reduce
anxiety. They are seen as abnormal by the sufferer, and have a sense of
being "not me".
Religious rituals, on the other hand, are ego-syntonic, that is an
important part of one's life and culture; seen as wanted, valued,
rational and normal, and have a sense of being "me". The rituals are
shared by one's socio-cultural group, which takes them out of the arena
of clinical psychopathology.
No doubt, there are individuals, at the extreme end of religiosity, were
this distinction starts to blur. Also, some of the more severe OCD
sufferers also tend to become more ego-syntonic about their symptoms.
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