TYPES OF OBSESSIONS: SYMPTOMS AND CHARACTERISTICS - PSYCHOLOGY - 2025

The types of obsessions can be classified according to their origin and according to their theme. The term obsession is something that is used very widely by all of us, and surely we have once had a predominant theme that was spinning in our heads.

Obsessions or "manias" can appear in both children and adults, and it is normal that they arise at some point in our existence. Although there are people who live with obsessions without presenting major problems, there are cases in which obsessions can be very disabling, annoying, and damage the day-to-day life of those who suffer from them.

When it causes damage and becomes unbearable, we can consider obsessions to be pathological. Although many aspects can be in healthy people occasionally, the types of obsessions that we are going to name here are considered typical of obsessive compulsive disorder, also considered as "the disease of doubt."

What are obsessions?

Obsessions are ideas, images or mental impulses that repeatedly break into the individual's mental activity, which are unwanted or intrusive and cause significant anxiety or discomfort.

They are usually unpleasant (violent, obscene, or meaningless). Those who suffer from them usually try, usually without success, to resist them by carrying out certain behaviors (compulsions, ignoring them, neutralizing them…)

They are incorrectly perceived as your own and relevant thoughts, even if they are not really voluntary. Our mind simply produces ideas continuously, so it is normal for intrusive thoughts to arise.

The issue is in the interpretation: the intrusive unpleasant thought is usually ignored. Other people, on the other hand, constantly wonder why they have thought this way, creating an obsession.

Types of obsession according to origin

We are going to start with a more general classification. According to Lee and Kwon (2003), obsessions can be of two types:

Autogenous obsessions

They appear in our mind suddenly and for no apparent reason. Its content enters into controversy with the thoughts, beliefs and way of being and behaving of the individual who presents them. Thus, he creates a conflict with his own self that causes discomfort and is defined as "egodistonic".

These obsessions are repulsive and make you want to neutralize them immediately. They are unpleasant thoughts of violent, sexual or immoral themes.

Reactive obsessions

These types of obsessions, on the other hand, are triggered by clearly identifiable external reasons. And the person interprets those ideas as important, real and rational; starting to alleviate them.

Here we can include thoughts about fear of contamination or asymmetry. For example, in the latter, when the individual sees the messy pencils, the obsessive ideas of the need for symmetry arise and he is forced to order them as he wants to reduce his anxiety.

Obsessions according to their theme

If we want to be more specific, we will see that there are several topics that frequently concern obsessive people. We are going to see the main types of obsessions according to the topic of concern:

Contamination

It is considered one of the most common types of obsession. It is about the compulsive need to keep clean or clean objects in order to relieve stress caused by the obsession.

The obsession may be that if you get contaminated by touching an object, such as a doorknob, you get sick or die. This may be because you think it is dirty or because it contains some harmful substance that could poison you.

Many times the fear can be of simply feeling dirty, and they have to spend a great deal of time washing over and over again to feel clean again. These ideas can also be centered on another person, such as fearing that a loved one will become ill or will die from too many germs or intoxicated by some substance.

Thus, they focus their energies on carrying out a series of behaviors so that obsessive ideas are relieved. What they do not know is that they are in a vicious circle that is getting stronger and stronger. Some of the behaviors or rituals that people with pollution obsessions do are:

- Repetitive hand washing, with a large amount of soap and dedicating an inordinate amount of time.

- Shaking clothes constantly.

- They brush their teeth excessively.

- They do not handle certain chemical products for fear of being poisoned, or if they are afraid of going to places where there is more contamination (near factories).

- They avoid using public toilets due to the obsession that they are going to catch germs from other people and become ill.

- Thorough cleaning of the home for fear that the family will be contaminated with germs (wash the dishes several times, disinfect everything with strong cleaning products, etc.)

- They use handkerchiefs to avoid getting dirty with the doorknobs.

- They avoid public transport or the hospital for fear of contagion of some disease or germs from other people.

- They do not attend or do not consume anything in restaurants or cafes.

As a consequence, this has an impact on the person's ability to maintain satisfactory obligations, jobs, studies and interpersonal relationships.

But specifically from this type of obsession many avoidance arises for going places or touching things for fear of contamination, and damage to the skin from excessive washing. Also, they can spend a lot of money on special cleaning products and appliances.

There is a curious form of contamination obsession called "mental contamination." It consists of recurring rituals of showering and washing yourself, with the difference that your feeling of dirt comes from within. In other words, that person may feel permanently dirty due to receiving physical or psychological abuse, resorting to their own disinfection to "clean themselves" to alleviate it.

Thus, it does not come from a polluting stimulus from outside, but from dealing with other people.

To lose control

These are repeated obsessions associated with the fear of acting impulsively in such a way that the person harms himself or others. Other immoral acts such as stealing, breaking something, or using obscenities or insults are included.

Within this type also belong the ideas of mentally avoiding violent, macabre or unpleasant images. Their fear of not thinking about them and considering them so relevant makes the images come back, building a vicious circle.

These thoughts are called intrusive thoughts. We can all have these types of thoughts sometimes, it is normal, but they become obsessions when the person is surprised to have them and begins to believe that they are serious and that they will make them lose control.

This makes them desperate and causes deep discomfort, thinking over and over about the unpleasant idea while trying to avoid it by doing rituals such as counting, hitting a surface a certain number of times, or checking over and over again if the obsession was just a thought or carried it out.

Hurt others

People with these obsessions continually think that they may be responsible for something terrible happening to other people, or that they can prevent it.

They observe numerous dangers for others in the environment and feel that their obligation is to remove, fix or avoid them.

For example, when they see a stone on the street they cannot stop thinking over and over that someone is going to trip over it and hurt themselves. So her behavior is to remove all the stones or obstacles that she sees.

They are focused on keeping everything absolutely controlled and taken care of so that neither themselves nor others suffer harm, since they think that if this happens it could be their fault for not having prevented it.

Do something embarrassing or scandalous

His obsessions are centered on the fear of insulting someone, impulsively speaking obscenities, making mistakes or making a fool of himself in front of others.

For example, they may fear saying inappropriate things such as obscenities or bad words in inappropriate settings (a mass, a school). On the other hand, they can become obsessed with making a big mistake in front of everyone, forgetting what they were going to say while speaking or go blank, make some misspelling, and even repeatedly think that their pants are zipped open.

These people do not want to and will not do this, but their fear is related (as we saw) with the loss of control. That is, they believe they have done it and that perhaps they have not realized it or they are worried thinking that if that idea occurs to them it is because they were going to do it.

It is important not to confuse with social phobia, although it is common for OCD and this disorder to occur together.

Sexual obsessions

In this case, the theme of obsessions revolves around sexual thoughts, images and impulses that are considered forbidden, immoral or that could harm others.

Examples of this are obsessions about having aggressive sex, rape, incest, pedophilia, thoughts contradictory to their sexual orientation, animals, religious figures, etc.

They differ from fantasies in that people recognize that their obsessions are unpleasant, immoral, cause feelings of guilt and disgust, and do not want to carry them out.

There is very little research on this topic, although this type of intrusive thinking can be very common. In fact, more than 90% of people report having had these kinds of thoughts at some time in their lives; and up to a quarter of patients with obsessive compulsive disorder have had these types of obsessions. Although they could be more, but this issue, being socially stigmatized, is usually hidden.

Obsessions of sexual orientation

They are related to the previous point. In this case, the obsession is centered on being homosexual, engaging in behavior with people of the same sex, or being ridiculed for being homosexual.

The funny thing is that these people are not homosexual. However, due to some event that could happen to anyone (thinking that someone of the same sex is attractive), they feel that it is evidence that they are homosexual and they doubt it all day.

They are afraid of finding evidence that they are gay, and they are continually attentive to their own feelings and behavior when they see people of the same sex. Thus, these ideas are repeated over and over again, checking all day if they feel that attraction and becoming an obsession.

Finally, those affected can avoid watching programs or movies with homosexual content, spending time with friends of the same sex, increasing the number of relationships with people of the opposite sex, and can even view pornography of that theme to see if they are excited or not.

It occurs more in men than in women, and it may be for a cultural reason.

At the time of diagnosis, one must be cautious, since it is often confused with the normal process of discovering one's sexual orientation.

Religious obsessions

Religion is a very important topic for many people, so it is normal that obsessions can arise with it.

Obsessive thoughts on this topic are worry about committing sins, blaspheming, offending God, not praying enough, fear of going to hell or not being forgiven, yelling or thinking obscenities in a sacred place, fear of ceasing to believe in God, etc.

They are also called scrupulousness, and they can be very annoying for the person because their obsessions do not allow them to live in peace with their beliefs. They tend to focus on certain details of their religion and ignore others.

Obsessions of this type appear to occur in 25% of individuals with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (Antony, Dowie, & Swinson, 1998). In addition, they are people who have a negative image of God, seeing him as a being that punishes and penalizes.

Surprisingly, these ideas do not only exist in strictly religious people, but also occur in people without a defined religion and even atheists.

The behaviors or compulsions they perform to eliminate their anxiety are: repeatedly praying without making mistakes, giving thanks to God, going to church numerous times, repeatedly kissing religious objects, etc.

Symmetry and perfectionism

These people usually worry that everything must be exact, uniform and symmetrical. Not only visually not the sense of physical order, but also mental.

That is why there is a desire for perfectionism that causes discomfort to the person for being too demanding with oneself. In this way, they can force themselves to know or remember everything; fearing forgetting important information. Thus, they can spend a lot of time checking whether or not they remember certain things and trying to get them back.

Within this category there is also the fear of losing things, or not expressing exactly the words you want.

Furthermore, it is frequently associated with magical thinking. So that you understand, we are going to give an example of this type of thinking: “if I don't order things in my room in the right way, my mother is going to have an accident”. This is, in short, that the person believes herself responsible for things that are beyond her control. The person knows this is ridiculous, but she does it "just in case" and thus relieves her fear.

When they observe the lack of accuracy in some aspect of life, they notice an immense discomfort that they intend to solve in some way: to place things in a symmetrical way or to leave measured spaces between object and object.

It can be confused with Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, but it is not the same; because the latter seem not to suffer so much discomfort nor can they be considered obsessions in themselves, but rather a way of being.

Hoarding

It consists of an obsession to retain all kinds of objects, and is triggered by going to shopping centers, or any type of stores or supermarkets.

These people are afraid of one day needing things and lacking them, so their behavior is aimed at collecting or keeping many objects of no apparent value at home. They avoid at all costs discarding products, even if they are broken or not serving, and they compulsively buy or take free items (free newspapers, samples…)

It looks like Hoarding Disorder, but it's a different diagnosis.

Other more specific types of obsessions are:

- Obsession about having a physical or mental illness without knowing it, or probability of contracting it.

- Avoid or use certain numbers or colors to associate them with negative or positive concepts.

- Worry about losing one's personality or positive qualities

- Superstitions that worry you significantly.

- Excessive concern about a certain part of your body or appearance.

- Great annoyance when hearing certain sounds or noises.

- Non-violent intrusive images such as faces, clouds or animated characters.

- Nonsense intrusive sounds, words or melodies that annoy you.

References

1. American Psychiatric Association (APA). (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V).
2. Antony, MM, Downie, F., & Swinson, RP (1998). Diagnostic issues and epidemiology in obsessive compulsive disorder. In RP Swinson, MM Antony, SS Rachman, MA Richter, RP Swinson, MM Antony, MA Richter (Eds.), Obsessive-compulsive disorder: Theory, research, and treatment (pp. 3-32). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
3. Lee HJ, Kwon SM (2003). Two different types of obsession: autogenous obsessions and reactive obsessions. Behav Res Ther. 41 (1): 11-29.
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