Cognitive-behavioral risk factors include low effortful control with impaired executive functioning, negative self-attributional …show more content…
For instance, it fails to account for the intertwining environmental factors, especially those within the family, that play a key role in shaping the way people think and behave. To adopt and implement a more holistic view, my model attempts to display the interactive relationship between environmental and cognitive-behavioral factors and how they together result in the onset of OCD. In turn, the onset of OCD will lead to obsession/compulsion symptoms, like symmetry/order, contamination/cleaning, obsessions/checking, hoarding, cognitive neutralizing rituals, and sometimes obsessions characterized by aggressive, sexual, or religious themes (Grisham et al., 2008). For clarification, cognitive neutralizing rituals are aimed at undoing and/or preventing anticipated, negative effects of intrusive thoughts. Overall, people feel compelled to perform the compulsive acts, which can be repetitive behaviors or mental acts, because of their obsessive thoughts. These intrusive thoughts not only stem from the preexisting mind of individuals, but also emerge, develop, and/or are influenced by experiences in different …show more content…
Let’s say a working woman in her early adulthood is taking a bathroom break from her deskwork. In this case, the trigger would be seeing a disturbing imperfection on her skin, which can range from being on her face to on her arms. A basic intrusive thought would just be that there are so many blemishes on her skin. Her possible interpretation of this thought would be that she is dirty and impure. Because of these thoughts, she will most likely be stressed out with feelings of disgust, anxiety, and fear that others will dislike or judge her because of her blemishes. As a result, she will try to amend her imperfections by picking her skin. This may bring about temporary relief from stress, anxiety, and disgust, but it will not be long before she has the same recurring thoughts again. She will try not to think about her existing imperfection and not pick at her skin, but within proper treatment, mere suppression will only make her obsessions and compulsions even more severe. In this example, the environmental component is not as apparent as the cognitive component of perfectionism in this example. In relation to the psychoanalytic theory, an unconscious drive for perfect skin and being clean of the impurities might have begun from either involving or super critical parents, mean bullies during childhood, or maybe it is based on a value in the community’s