Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Introduction

In an influential paper, Fiske and Halsam (1997) begin with a description of a man in an unfamiliar country. We observe him to be dressed all in red in a red doorway, washing his hands six times in six different basins that have been arranged meticulously. His eyebrows are plucked bare, and as he washes, he repeats the same phrase, occasionally tapping his earlobe with his right index finger. Their question to the hypothetical observer is: Is this man a priest performing a sanctified ritual? Or is he afflicted with obsessive compulsive disorder? Is he normal, or mad? The question resides in a space between clinical psychiatry and anthropology and is much more far-reaching than the surface implication that normality is culturally constructed. The striking similarities between the form and content of normal ritual and the ritualistic behavior of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) invite a deeper analysis. This paper is concerned with the implications of a common ground between normal ritual...