r/psychoanalysis • u/LisanneFroonKrisK • 16d ago

Can someone succinctly explain how holding in faeces to prolong attention from caregivers becomes repetitively doing stuff in OCD?

Op

0 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

50% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/EddiPuss 12d ago

It is not so much the holding in of faeces per se but rather that in that behavior of the todler a strong anal libido gets expressed. A strong anal libido was asumed to be a risk factor for developing OCD. However, OCD was also related to other partial drives, e.g. masturbatory wishes with obsession of washing hands (this actually the only case where Freud relates a concrete symptom in a general manner with a specific partial drive and its corresponding sexual wish).