He pulled a sock and two toothbrushes out of the kids' toilet.

Cash, I think your kids are bent on world domination one toilet at a time.

I admire you so damned much.

Yes, I think I'd have long since resorted to yelling "That's it! I'm putting a lock on the toilet and you're wearing diapers until you can drive!"

I heard the news about Bo Diddley -- he was younger than my Mom is! That's just wrong, because he should have got to go on much longer than he did. SIGH

What other sorts of reasons do you suggest?

behavioral, chemical loop that reinforces itself

I've met some people who didn't articulate their compulsive behavior in terms of some neurosis or anxiety that needed to be staved off, it was just stated as fact. And sometimes in kids I see compulsive repetition which seems to me more connected to pattern recognition than anything else.

Cash, I think your kids are bent on world domination one toilet at a time.

My son flushed a plastic cup that he found in the doctor's office bathroom. Took out the toilet until the plumber could come fix it. Wrecking them at home wasn't quite enough fun. It was a while before he was allowed to go to the bathroom by himself again.

Ha! F2F in PA.

::raises head from pile of paper to say...::

WHEN??!!!

Cashmere - buy the auger. Guaranteed that they'll stop flushing things.

I've met some people who didn't articulate their compulsive behavior in terms of some neurosis or anxiety that needed to be staved off, it was just stated as fact

I guess what I don't get here is when they know they're done. Alleviation of a neurosis seems a simple enough mechanism. In the scenarios you describe is it just a simple knowledge that tapping that twenty times makes things right again? What does "not right" consist of, then?

Maria, clearly your father and my grandmother must never meet. It would be like a black hole of overworrying.

Add my mother, an Olympic class worrier, and we could suck up the whole galaxy. My mother worries when anything happens in the whole state, regardless of how far away it is. She called me at 5:30 a.m. after the Olympic Park bombing, after worrying all night. That wasn't completely unfounded; I was volunteering nearby and had walked through the park about a half hour before the bomb. It just didn't occur to me to call my mother at 1 a.m. and say, "Still not dead."

In the scenarios you describe is it just a simple knowledge that tapping that twenty times makes things right again? What does "not right" consist of, then?

I think the difference is you seem to assume that all compulsive behavior is initiated by the perception of something being "not right" and I think there are instances where it is initiated simply by the perception of the pattern.

Okay, off to pick up the kids.

Back when Psychoanalysis was influential in Psychology and Psychiatry, Neurosis was the general concept and Compulsion was one of many symptoms of Neurosis. Lots of time was spent figuring out whether the patient was neurotic and which neurotic processes were responsible for the symptoms. It was great fun, with Ink Blot tests and sitting around a table discussiong the patient and feeling smart and insightful.

At this point, though, Psychoanalysis and its concepts are rejected by nearly all experts in Psychology and Psychiatry, so Neurosis has no official meaning--you won't find it in any official diagnosis, for instance.

My friends in English departments say that Psychoanalysis is still useful in literary criticism. It makes sense that a product of Freud's imagination might be useful in explaining the products of other people's imaginations. But it's never been shown to be of any specific value in helping people with their problems. It's mostly used as an example of how big a fool you can make of yourself if you accept theories without putting them to a scientific test. Kind of a sad end given the high hopes for Psychoanalysis at the start.