The morbid, obsessive handwashing most of us know from films about neurotic people. However, this ailment can affect almost anyone if the circumstances are favorable for it. Today we know a lot about this disorder. The compulsion to wash your hands - this is what you should know.

Docompulsion to wash your handstoobsession ? Most he althy people are obsessed. It is a common phenomenon: we involuntarily repeat a melody in our thoughts, we have doubts as to whether we have locked the car or the door to the apartment, we care too much about cleanliness, etc. However, for most of us, these thoughts arise from specific life situations, they have reasons external, they do not interfere with life, do not take time and we can suppress them or distract from them, if we really try to do it.

The morbid obsession with cleanliness, washing hands, can take an extreme form, however, when the skin of the hands becomes sick and the hands are washed many times within an hour. Such an activity also seems completely pointless - after all, hands are definitely clean.

Washing hands: symbolic meaning

Why do people feel the need to wash their hands, or even to wash themselves, even when they are certainly clean? To understand this phenomenon, one has to look at the meaning of washing itself. In popular consciousness, washing is more than just getting rid of dirt. It is also a symbolic gesture in our culture. For example, Pilate washed his hands after he handed Jesus over to the crowd. Pilate's gesture is read as "I do not want to have anything to do with it, I distance myself from this injustice, I am clean". Lady Macbeth also felt compelled to wash her hands after she helped her husband kill the king.

Washing hands: cleansing ritual

Zygmunt Freud already claimed that when we wash our hands, we wash off our dirty works. In his opinion, sometimes we try to cleanse the soul by cleansing the body. A bit like: "when you have a dirty conscience, you care too much about cleanliness, you feel compelled to wash yourself". Today's research confirms the intuitions of a genius psychologist. For example, in one experiment, a group of people was asked to rewrite a story that had immoral, "ugly" content. At the same time, the second group was rewriting stories with moral content.

Then everyone had to judge how much they would like tohave items of similar value (cleaning agents, small electronics, etc.) It found that those who had prescribed immoral content before were more likely to want soap, disinfectant or wipes than those who rewrote moral stories!

The differences between the groups were so great that there was no way they could be attributed to chance. Such a craving acted somewhat like "bread in mind" for the hungry: those who felt contaminated by the thought of immoral content craved more for objects that could purify them. It seems that they treated their body washing as a "remedy" for "dirty thoughts" that appeared during the experiment.

You wash your body - you wash your soul

Psychologists have discovered one more interesting fact here: washing your body really alleviates unpleasant emotions! How do we know this? In another experiment, people were asked to think about some wrong, immoral deed of theirs. It turned out that then almost three-quarters of them helped a "random", stranger to whom something bad had happened. The respondents did so because they wanted to restore the belief that they were good people with a good deed, a belief that had been compromised by remembering the meanness they had committed.

It also turned out, however, that if, after remembering their immoral act, they had the opportunity to wash their hands or even wipe them with only an antiseptic handkerchief, then the desire to help almost completely disappeared (only every tenth person helped!)

The result of the experiment is perfect evidence that washing your hands "erases" remorse and the feeling of being a sinful person. When people experience guilt, shame, disgust, regret, etc., cleaning (also tidying up) actually softens the intensity of these feelings. Unfortunately, this is why keeping things clean can become a disease.

For many people, it is as shameful to think something vile or sinful as to act dirty. If someone has very strict moral convictions, they will feel dirty even if they just think of something wrong. And since our psyche is governed by its own rules, it sometimes happens that mean thoughts come to us by themselves, without our conscious participation. Even so, they still have the power to purify themselves, and ultimately a person only feels an urge to wash themselves. If we have many unwanted thoughts in our head, washing may become a destructive compulsion.

Important

Can it be cured?

Sigmund Freud was convinced that the condition for recovery is to recognize, realize and accept his true desires. For there are no bad desires or bad desiresfeelings, there are only bad deeds. Desires and thoughts are neither good nor bad as long as they are in the realm of fantasy. Today we know that obsessive washing is also associated with brain dysfunction, as well as depression. That is why the sick are greatly relieved by medications prescribed by a psychiatrist, although without psychotherapy such relief may be impermanent.

Category:

Psychiatry