Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:59:10.712Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Obsessional Personality Disorder and Remembering

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Graham F. Reed
Graham F. Reed*
Affiliation:
York University, Toronto, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Patients suffering from obsessional personality disorder (anankasts) have been described as possessing ‘superior memories', because of the detailed precision of their accounts. At the same time, such classical phenomena as doubt, checking and rumination imply faulty recall. This paradox is discussed, and some predictions drawn from a hypothesis regarding the cognitive characteristics of obsessional disorder. Findings are presented which indicate that, by comparison with matched psychiatric controls, anankasts do not excel in the long-term recall of factual information or meaningful anecdotal material. But they show the following mnemonic features:

(a) Superiority of immediate memory span, reflecting high levels of attention.

(b) Superior recall of ambiguous anecdotal material, reflecting a tendency to the pointless ‘rehearsal’ of such material.

(c) Weak redintegration in personal reminiscence.

It is suggested that anankasts' doubts about their remembering refer not so much to the correctness of what is being recalled as to the quality of the recalling itself.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 130 , Issue 2 , February 1977 , pp. 177 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 1977 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bartlett, F. C. (1932) Remembering, Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Barucci, M. (1954) Analisi e classificazione dei fenomeni di cosidetta ipermnesia. Riv. Pat. new. e ment., 75, 663–75.Google Scholar
Glixman, A. F. (1949) Recall of completed and incompleted activities under varying degrees of stress. J. exp. Psychol., 39, 281–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Janet, P. (1903) Les obsessions et la psychasthénic. Paris: Alcan.Google Scholar
Mayer-Gross, W., Slater, E. & Roth, M. (1960) Clinical Psychiatry. 2nd edn. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
Petrilowitsch, N. (1960) Abnorme Persönlichkeiten. Basel: Karger.Google Scholar
Rapaport, D. (1946) Diagnostic Psychological Testing. Vol I. Chicago: Year Book.Google Scholar
Reed, G. F. (1968) Some formal qualities of obsessional thinking. Psychiat. clin., 1, 382–92.Google ScholarPubMed
Reed, G. F. (1972) The Psychology of Anomalous Experience: a Cognitive Approach. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Rozenzweig, S. (1943) An experimental study of ‘Repression’. J. exp. Psychol., 32, 64–74.Google Scholar
Schneider, K. (1958) Psychopathic Personalities. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
Schneider, K. (1959) Clinical Psychopathology. New York: Grune and Stratton.Google Scholar
Sedman, G. & Reed, G. F. (1963) Depersonalization phenomena in obsessional personalities and in depression. Brit. J. Psychiat., 109, 376–9.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.