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Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). ObsessiveCompulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security
Motivation. Psychological Review, 111(1), 111-127.
doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Brittany Myers, Jessica Marquez, and Molly
Shelton
OCD examples
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSEoV0fSm4&feature=player_embedded
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dR8xVqS
fXc&feature=player_embedded
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review,
111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Symptoms consist of recurrent and persistent thoughts
(obsessions) and/or repetitive, relatively stereotyped
behaviors (compulsions) that the person feels compelled to
think or perform but recognizes as irrational or excessive.
•
•
•
Obsessions can include putting oneself down constantly, concern with bodily
functions, fears of the spread of disease, and fear of being responsible for harm of
a friend.
Compulsions can include excessive checking, avoidance behaviors, and compulsive
washing of hands or the home.
twice as prevalent as schizophrenia or panic disorder.
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological
Review, 111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Explanations for the presence of OCD
• Demons inhabiting a person’s body.
• “One is a pathological intensity of excitation of the particular
thoughts, ideas, or actions.”
• “The other is a relative failure of the systems that normally
terminate such thoughts, ideas, or actions.”
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review,
111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
G.F. Reed’s Studies
• “Majority of patient’s (70%) described the experience of
compulsions in terms of some impairment of will power.”
• “Those who are trapped in a circle of repetitive behavior do
not report that something forces them to continue, but they
lack something to make them stop.”
• Conceptualization of OCD as a cognitive disorder.
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological
Review, 111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Szechtman & Woody’s article
• Individuals with OCD do not have difficulty with everyday
tasks, which is what a broken cognitive module would
suggest.
• “Such symptoms, despite their apparent nonrationality, have
what might be termed an epistemic origin – that is, they stem
from an inability to generate the normal ‘feeling of knowing’
that would otherwise signal task completion and terminate
the expression of a security motivational system.”
• Security Motivation System
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review,
111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Security Motivation System
• Seeks to protect oneself and others from potential danger.
• System is overactive in OCD patients because they are lacking
the “feeling of knowing” that allows them to know when to
deactivate that system. Individuals with OCD never reach that
feeling that they no longer need to be on guard.
• Feeling of knowing as “yedasentience”
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review,
111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Yedasentience
• Satisfaction of knowing that you or others that you are
seeking to protect are not in harm’s way.
• “The security motivation system has two distinct emotional
states: anxiety as part of a go signal, and yedasentience is the
stop signal.”
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review,
111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Security Motivation of OCD victims
1. Appraisal of potential danger- organism evaluates incoming environmental
stimuli. If one sees potential danger or threat to self or others then…
2. Security Motivation- when activated, generates a set of coordinated
outputs that serve to energize and focus the individual on attaining a
specific goal.
3. This then activates security related programs- motor and cognitive
programs that protect the self or others. For example: washing hands.
4. Then comes motor or visceral output. This behavior/program done in
previous step leads to yedasentience, that stops the signal and enables
the individual to stop the action.
– Someone with OCD doesn’t have this Yedasentience component, which causes them to
continue the behavior or thought in a compulsive manor.
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review,
111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Security Motivation of OCD victims
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review,
111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Conclusion
• OCD as a disturbance of security motivation.
• The inability to put closure on experience in OCD is not a
problem in higher cognition, rather, is a deficit in its emotional
underpinnings.
– In the OCD patient, the performance of security- related behavior fails
to generate the feeling state that would normally shut down security
motivation.
– Deficit in emotion-based knowing. OCD patient’s doubt their own
behavior.
– They disbelieve their behavior because it fails to produce the normal
internal feedback that should have released the, from the grip of
activated security motivation.
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review,
111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Conclusion continued…
• OCD patients cannot look onto the
environment to compensate for the
terminator that they cannot genrate.
• Their recourse is to repeat the behavior over
and over, in an attempt to overcome a
dysfunctional feedback mechanism and
eventually dampen the driving motivation.
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological
Review, 111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Interesting Points
• 1) Individuals who suffer from obsessivecompulsive disorder are most likely to
describe it as experiencing compulsions as a
result of an impairment of willpower (70%)
rather than seeing the disorder as a sickness
(16%) or blaming it on the power of the
compulsions (4%).
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review, 111(1),
111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Interesting Points
• 2) The behaviors victims of obsessive-compulsive
disorder enact are a result of behavioral packages
that were programmed through evolutionary
psychology, and therefore biological prerequisites in
the brain. This hard wiring could include checking
behaviors, cleaning behaviors, and concern about
danger to the self and others. Individuals who suffer
from OCD experience an inability to control this
hardwiring.
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review,
111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Interesting Point
• 3) The security motivation system refers to the
biological predispositions hardwired through
evolutionary psychology. It is directed toward
protecting oneself from danger to self and others.
The “feeling of knowing,” which the authors coin as
yedasentience, is what shuts down the security
motivation system and lets the person know that
they no longer need to be on guard. Individuals with
obsessive-compulsive disorder lack the ability to
achieve yedasentience.
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review,
111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Criticisms
• 1) Although the authors did a good job at supporting
their belief that obsessive-compulsive disorder is a
result of a failure of the system that normally
terminates obsessions and compulsions, they did not
do a sufficient enough job of debunking the other
side of the argument. They did not sufficiently
explore the belief of OCD as a result of an intensity of
particular thoughts, ideas, and actions.
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review,
111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Criticisms
• 2) The authors described their theory and the
security motivation system thoroughly, but
they never did any experiments to test its
validity. It would be interesting to see how
the brains of individuals with OCD react
differently to certain situations that threaten
danger versus the brains of individuals who
are free from OCD.
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review,
111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.
Criticisms
• 3) The authors mentioned how this security
motivation system would have adapted over
time as part of evolution, but they never went
into too much detail. They did not give
examples of how this security motivation
system would have benefited our ancestors.
Szechtman, H., & Woody, E. (2004). Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as a Disturbance of Security Motivation. Psychological Review,
111(1), 111-127. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.1.111.