Steven Crane Compiled Section Handouts. Human Behavioral Biology 2012

OCD and ritualistic practices

First, what is OCD? What are the behaviors, the thoughts, the condition?

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  A very intense, pathological disease in its full form. Not the minor obsessions/compulsions that affect most individuals.
  
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  Spend many hours a day doing compulsions: behaviors that the individual has almost no control over. Like washing, door lock-checking, etc. to a pathological degree.
  
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  These compulsions in some sense assuage a deep anxiety and dread about the world (germs, theft, etc.)
  
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  A mental component: obsessions. Thought patterns that you can't escape, obsessions with counting things, with certain numbers or arrangements of things.
  
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  Obsessions and compulsions usually focus on these four things:
  

  • Hygiene

  • Food preparation

  • Entering/leaving a building/space

  • Numerology/symmetry

In what way does religion also show some of these characteristics? What are some examples?

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  Hindu Brahmans do hours of washing and prayers every day. Society supports them in this endeavor.
  
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  There are certain magic numbers in many religions, particularly Orthodox Judaism: 613 rules. And the numerology itself is the point, less about what the rules are. Same with Islam and Christianity.
  
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  Many religions have doctrine around hygiene, food preparation, entering/leaving, and symmetry.
  
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  Martin Luther's writings clearly suggest OCD, and he was clearly tremendously influential in shaping religious history.
  
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  Interpretation: many religious rituals may have resulted from the influence of OCD in the past.
  
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  Interpretation: religion is a sanctuary that supports these behaviors, gives them a context in which they are adaptive. In other contexts they'd be considered straight up psychiatric disorders.
  
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    Ex: you can be a kosher certifier and make a living just making sure that food is prepared in the right way.
    
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    Ex: anorexia nervosa is clearly a disease in one context. But Catherine of Sienna was comforted and supported in anorexic behavior as saint-like and divinely inspired.