-Dorothy Parker

he Obsessive-Compulsive Personality - A pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control - at the expense of flexibility, openness and efficiency. Beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts.


Three Films That Got It Right...

SAY ANYTHING - In Say Anything, Diane Court is a girl who, when introduced at her graduation ceremony by her teacher, is summed up with the words, "history [dramatic pause], oceanography [dramatic pause], creative writing [big dramatic pause], biochemistry...I think you know who I'm talking about." Diane is her achievements, and during her speech she is a veritable orchard of apples of the collected parents' eyes. Her greatest achievement is her role as her father's daughter. This is more important to her than her summer university courses, her after school job in the Home for the Aged - greater than her fellowship to study in England. She has succeeded academically beyond either of their wildest dreams and devoted her life to her father's rigid plan for success. What she had not planned for was love. Enter Lloyd Dobler, a young man with far more hormones than dendrites. Dobler is prone to goofy adolescent antics and has, as his only goal in life, being devoted to Diane (that and becoming a professional kick boxer). Diane's father worries, and bitterly notes that what Diane is about to do with the less than ennobled Lloyd Dobler, is lose her foothold in superior standing and "learn to champion mediocrity."

LOST IN AMERICA - David Howard is an advertising executive agonizing over his hyper-responsibility so that he can get a promotion to the vice-presidency. David finds himself passed over yet again and spontaneously - uncharacteristically spontaneously - quits his job. He and his wife, Linda - likewise leading a career-centric life - decide to get Lost In America. David has calculated to the penny what their savings will allow for and what their house will bring on the market. After poring over enough information on motor homes to shame the Library of Congress, he and Linda head first to Las Vegas to renew their wedding vows before embarking on lives of the free-spirited. Unfortunately, Linda has an unanticipated gambling problem. She leaves their heart-shaped second honeymoon bed in the middle of the night to gamble away their nest egg. They are left broke, forlorn, and perhaps a bit too free and unburdened for David's taste and disposition.

AS GOOD AS IT GETS - In As Good As It Gets, Melvin Udall is a writer of torrid, bodice-ripping romance novels. His personal life, however, is very different from his professional one as he keeps the world at a very safe distance. He successfully keeps himself isolated by employing his abrasive personality. A personality he has carefully, over the years, fashioned into a blunt instrument. When a nubile fan gushes over his work and asks him how he writes women so well, he responds by telling her that he "[thinks] of a man, then I take away reason and accountability." He refers to his gay neighbor, Simon, as a "fag" whom "nances" around. He clears his favorite table at a restaurant by telling the Jewish patrons that, "…[their] appetites weren't as big as their noses."

Melvin's life is one of intense ritual, orderliness, and control. He refuses to touch anything public, or let anyone touch him. While walking down a crowded sidewalk, he valiantly fights to not step on any cracks. He will go to great lengths in his need to remain ordered. Lengths that include paying the medical bills for the ill son of the neighborhood restaurant waitress, Carol. An act of selfish generosity on his part, done for no other reason than to allow Carol to continue to serve him in the only restaurant where he will eat. This, not surprisingly, leads to a shattering of his ordered world when, once he has let her in, he falls in love with her.