Psychological Explanations of OCD: Psychodynamic

Freud referred to his psychoanalytic theory when explaining OCD. People possessing an anal retentive personality are those who are neat and orderly and according to Freud are the most likely to have OCD. He explained that during the psychosexual stages of development, and individual experiences a fixation at the anal stage which is around the age of 2 years. Freud suggested that children at this stage take pleasure from their bowel movements but when they are being toilet trained the child has to accept their parents' will which is to be clean and tidy, this conflicts as a child's' urge is to be messy. Despite feeling restricted during toilet training the parental pressure elicits guilt in the child thus leading to internal conflicts between the different parts of the psyche, the id, and ego. When this conflict is particularly strong and coincides with overly strict parents then a child's development is prevented and issues that have occurred at this stage are likely to appear in adulthood. 

Adler proposed…