Posted April 23, Reviewed by Ekua Hagan. The psychological usage of this term was coined by Sigmund Freud , born years ago on May 6, The anal stage coincides with the era of toilet training, a time when, children realize for the first time they can control their bowel movements, as well as themselves and their environment. While anal-retentive personality is not included in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, it has some commonalities with obsessive-compulsive disorder: excess cleanliness expressed through repetitive hand-washing, extreme orderliness, and need for control.
Whatever one calls them, the aim of these behaviors is to reduce anxiety. This can be irritating to those around them because such behavior extends beyond what is felt to be reasonable, helpful or productive. For example, Jason, a young associate in a law firm complained the senior partner supervising him on a brief demanded he investigate every possible theory involved with an aspect of the case, even those theories deemed far-fetched or unlikely.
This required spending his entire weekend researching decisions that, in his opinion, had no bearing on the case and were a complete waste of time. Similarly, people can become frustrated by their own need to control and focus intensely on non-essential details but feel unable to control this need or impulse. Bob wanted to buy a new refrigerator. He checked on-line for the best models, finding one in his price range that was highly rated but with a couple of negative reviews.
He spent several days researching the features that had been reviewed negatively as well as researching other models. Each highly rated model had a few negative reviews. After a while, Bob realized he was afraid he would make the wrong decision but his research just made him more anxious and was not helping him decide.
The anxiety comes from a sense of impending chaos and the anal behavior is an attempt to control or ward off chaos. Anality is in the eye of the beholder. He would be happy if someone else could decide for him. Everyone can become anal at one time or another. Anal behavior is an attempt to control that anxiety. Susan Kolod, Ph. Kristen Beesley, Ph. Kristen Beesley Ph. Psychoanalysis Unplugged. About the Author. More from Kristen Beesley Ph. More from Psychology Today.
