Which Mental Illness Encompasses This Problem?

zoobyshoe

The problem is: the overwhelming compulsion to do something because you know you shouldn't do it.

I'm reading a biography of Edgar Allan Poe and he complains of this compulsion having ruled his life, particularly in the case of his binge drinking.

Derren Brown also exploits this compulsion in one of his segments in which he induces a girl to electrocute a kitten simply by giving her the task of not electrocuting the kitten. (He puts her in a room with a kitten in a metal cage, an on button, and tells her her job is to stay there alone for five minutes without pressing the button.)

I'm thinking this must be a part of OCD or an anxiety disorder, but it might be something else, and I'm too lazy to hunt for it just now.

micromass

Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with OCD.

Illuminerdi

Are you sure about that?

Here's a test for you:

Don't think about white bears.

micromass

As somebody who suffers from OCD himself, I am quite sure that it has nothing at all to do with OCD. And your example also has nothing to do with OCD.

OCD has to do with frightening or obtrusive thoughts. These thoughts are so disturbing, that you usually feel compelled to do some kind of action to "eliminate" the thought.
That said, everybody has that, but OCDD sufferers have it really bad.

A typical OCD person would think of pushing the button and hurting the poor little cat. But the thought would frighten and disgust him so much that he ends up counting to 1024 (for example). OCD does not make people push the button. Pushing the button is evil and disturbing, and OCD does not drive you to doing evil things.

zoobyshoe

Hehe, this isn't the same thing. In order not to think about polar bears you have to remember what not to think about. It's a joke catch 22.

As I recall it was the initiation rite of some British men's club. They give you this task, not to think about polar bears, leave you alone for a while, then come back and ask if you thought about polar bears. The right answer is "No", i.e. to pretend you didn't.

It's not impossible to avoid pressing the button at all in the case of the kitten. Certain people are susceptible to the urge to do it strictly because they were told not to. It has something to do with maintaining your autonomy at all costs. They would have no desire to kill the kitten at all. The point is to never let anyone else control you.

ilhan8

this is not OCD. no anxiety.
OCD is an anxiety disorder.
this can be a fictional illness.
it is not listed in DSM.

Illuminerdi

I agree that it's not OCD, but not that it has nothing to do with OCD. I can say this from personal experience₁ as well as someone with a family history that covers half the DSM. The idea is that it's the inability to suppress an unwanted thought, which can become amplified. I know there's some suggestion involved in this particular example which isn't usually the case with OCD (though it is, with the example I'll list below), but it's conceptually similar, even if not directly related.

I personally have sought treatment₂ for having compulsions wherein I imagine jumping in front of the trains I take every morning to school. It's not a voluntary thought and it's not a suicidal ideation, either. It's more comparable to the "what if?" thoughts that might intrude atop a tall building. While I wait for the train, I experience psychogenic pain, sweating, heavily breathing, and usually tense up and twitch pretty hard immediately before boarding and living the rest of the day, normally.

1. My official diagnosis is actually autism.
2. It doesn't work.

zoobyshoe

What you're describing sounds similar enough to Poe's compulsions to be a lead. A couple of the characters in his stories have the same sort of panic and struggle not to throw themselves over cliffs. Did the therapist give you a name for this sort of thing?

micromass

That looks like OCD. I know cases where people are driving a car and suddenly think that they're going to crash the car on purpose. Everybody has these thoughts usually, butThe OCD people think the thought is so bad that they avoid driving the car in the future. So this type of behaviour fits with OCD.

zoobyshoe

O.K. Do you know if there's a name for this particular thing?

Pythagorean

Obsessive (but not a disorder)?

zoobyshoe

I think I found it: Intrusive Thoughts

There are more listed at the site: http://www.peaceofmind.com/symptoms/thoughts/

Edit: They are calling it "Pure Obsessional OCD".

zoobyshoe

Here's Poe's descant on the subject from The Imp of the Perverse:

http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/gsr/impperve.htm

bobze

Its part of the constellation of impulse control disorders. There are a lot. Some are specific (such as stealing), while others involve increased thrill seeking (think about it like a natural high). In terms of neural circuitry and pathophysiology they are somewhat (or thought to be) related to OCD. The mechanism to cope is different however. I don't think they are that well understood and like with other complex mental disorders this falls on the spectrum of human behavior (think some people are bigger thrill seekers than others), however we don't consider them a disorder until they are pathological (ie; causing harm to self or others).

Often they are related to substance abuse and substance abuse in and of itself can kind of be thought of as an acquired impulse control disorder (don't have time to elaborate, but do look into how addiction affects dopaminergic systems in the reward circuitry of the brain--good introduction at wikipedia)

zoobyshoe

Thanks, bobze. The first wiki article is pretty short. I found some more comprehensive ones on the subject and it seems to fit as well as the "pure-O" explanation.

Poe was a binge drinker, not the type that is always somewhat drunk every day. He could abstain for periods of months, but then, suddenly, he'd drink. Once he got started he might go on a 5 day bender before he stopped. He claimed he got no pleasure whatever from it. Indeed, there are reports of him drinking so much so fast that he'd be passed out in half an hour. Many people saw him take whole glasses of wine in one gulp. He always said he did it because he felt he shouldn't, and that thought, that he shouldn't, is what tantalized him, not being drunk.

apeiron

The root of it is that the brain is wired to respond to the focus of attention with action. So the simple uncomplicated thing is you notice the traffic lights have turned green and you go.

The more complicated thing that brains can do is inhibit action. So the fact we can sit quietly at a red even while we are itching to go, is due to prefrontal control over habitual responses. We can be focused on a possibility - driving away - and yet hold off until the moment is right. Some further thing happens, like the light changing.

What you are talking about is when we become caught up in paying strong attention to something we must absolutely not do - swerve into other cars, jump off buildings, electrocute a cat.

We know that we could just automatically suddenly do these things. All the triggering stimuli are horribly bright in our minds. The edge of the building, the presence of the other cars, the sight of the button. In effect, we are seeing screaming green lights that raises the fear our bodies will suddenly betray us and act. So now we are caught up in a battle to suppress those urges.

An obssessive personality might find it difficult to control their attention enough to just stop noticing the other cars, the edge, etc. But it is actually unlikely they will act out of habit unless they had previously practiced such lethal reactions to these stimuli.

The Derren Brown example you cite - I see he calls it negative suggestion - does not really fit into this explanation for intrusive thoughts.

You seem to be suggesting the girl was showing something a bit more pathological - a bloody mindedness or oppositional defiant disorder. Being told strongly not to do something would make you strongly want to do it.

Well we all feel that too. But the girl, again apparently selected following pre-show quizzing to find susceptible types, would seem to be complying to the unspoken demands of a "hypnotic" situation rather than reacting willfully against an authority figure.

So it is all related to the same basic brain architecture - the interaction between conscious level planning, willing, attending, and habit level acting, executing, responding.

But hypnosis is the opposite of defiance perhaps. It results from allowing someone else to direct your attention and produce responses "out of your control".

AlephZero

Whatever it's called, judging by the contents of folk tales, fairy stories, etc from all over the world it's a very common human condition. Disobeying an "arbitrary" order not to do something occurs often as a plot device.

Arguably the first recorded example is in Genesis chapter 3...