An Adlerian Perspective on Repetition Compulsion

The Adlerian view of a symptom is mainly focused on the purpose that it serves the individual. If two people perform a similar repetition compulsion, each may give it different meaning, and use it for a somewhat different, specific end (mentally, emotionally, or behaviorally). However, the common denominator may be an avoidance of some external demand or expectation.

In Obssession as a Means for the Enhancement of Self- esteem,(1913) Adler states: "In a general way I might claim that in every compulsion-neurotic there inheres the function of withdrawing from external compulsion, so that he may obey only his own compulsion. In other words, the compulsion-neurotic struggles so definitely against the will of another and against every foreign influence, that, in his fight against these, he comes to the point of positing his own will as sacred and irresistible."

In New Principles for the Practice of Individual Psychology,(1913) he comments: "Thus the neurosis and the psyche represent an attempt to free oneself from all the constraints of the community by establishing a counter-compulsion. This latter is so constituted that it effectively faces the peculiar nature of the surroundings and their demands. Both of these convincing inferences can be drawn from the manner in which this counter-compulsion manifests itself and from the neuroses selected.

..... The counter-compulsion takes on the nature of a revolt, gathers its material either from favorable affective experiences or from observations. It permits thoughts and affects to become preoccupied either with the above-mentioned stirrings or with unimportant details, as long as they at least serve the purpose of directing the eye and the attention of the patient away from his life-problems. In this manner, depending upon the needs of the situation, he prepares anxiety-and compulsion-situations, sleeplessness, swooning, perversions, hallucinations, slightly pathological affects, neurasthenic and hypochondriacal complexes and psychotic pictures of his actual condition, all of which are to serve him as excuses."

Lydia Sicher, in The Collected Works of Lydia Sicher: An Adlerian Perspective, writes: "No two people have the same compulsion, even if they feel compelled to perform the same ritual. Nothing is so intimate a property of a person as his outlook on life. This makes the problem 'individual' so fascinating and intriguing because there is no formula for the understanding the one from knowing the other. Only the world as a whole can serve as a starting point for the unravelling of a neurotic personality."

I recall a case where a very disturbed young man would line up the contents of his pockets on the floor, in various patterns, before he would talk to the therapist. He did this to minimize the influence of the other person.

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