Interpersonal obsessive disorder

According to Terran psychiatry as recorded in the ARMPA, interpersonal obsessive disorder (IOD) is the relational social disorder in which a person is severely obsessed with another person, either someone with whom he/she is in some way acquainted or a total stranger, and with whom he/she believes he/she has or desires to have a social or romantic relationship. It is one of the überdramatic disorders characterised by intense emotion and often socially inappropriate display of deep feelings. Erotomania need not be an element of the disorder but is a common feature of persons with this disorder.
==A social disorder ==
IOD affects the way a person interacts with another person and often with general society. It causes him/her to constantly think about the other person and persistently harass the other person. Persons affected with IOD are often unable to interact properly with others and have trouble forging friendship. As a result, they become obsessed with people and may stalk them.
==Signs and symptoms==
The signs and symptoms of interpersonal obsessive disorder are the ideas, thoughts, behaviors, and mental states that indicate the presence of IOD.
===Signs===
The signs are those behaviors that can be externally observed by a physician or society. The signs of IOD include committing the following acts toward a person against their will:
*persistently calling on the phone, sending e-mails or text messages to, or contacting such individual after multiple requests to stop or refusal by individual to respond to attempts to contact him/her 
*persistently following such individual without his/her knowledge or consent
*obsessively talking and/or writing about such individual
*searching for such individual (by internet or other means)
*manipulating such individual into uncomfortable or inappropriate interactions
*emotional withdrawal
===Symptoms===
The symptoms are the subjective and internal experiences of the patient, not directly observable by a medician. Symptoms of IOD include:
* relational delusion, a false belief that a relationship exists or continues despite lack of reciprocity, or that God or fate calls for its existence; or, narcissistic entitlement, the belief that one has the right to a relationship with a particular person 
*recurring thoughts about a person
*frequent desires to interact with such person
* fear or anxiety when interacting with such person
*intense anger with such person for refusing to interact
*sadness, loneliness
== Subtypes ==
Ai, a prestigious clinical psychologist, identified four distinct subtypes of interpersonal obsessive disorder.
Subtype 	Features
Ruminative obsessive (including misvertic and melancholic features) 	Persistently thinks about a person, develops an idee fixe that distorts the person; idealizes and overvalues person but is unable to socialize with him/her due to anxiety; talks constantly about person; may have been acquaintances with person at one time but never established a friendship or friendship ended
Vindictive obsessive (including sociopathic and sadistic features) 	Callous, heartless, brutal; jealous, feels resentment when others associate or interact with person; seeks to punish person for alleged abandonment, loathes person for leaving, betraying, or forsaking; violent, vicious, vengeful; physically abusive and sexually exploitative; may commit assault or murder
Introversive obsessive (including misvertic and anxious asocial features)	Socially reclusive, withdraws from others into self; does not interact with others, despite intense loneliness, due to fear of abandonment or rejection; gloomy due to (real or perceived) loss of friend; prone to melancholia and emotional neurosis; unable to trust, paranoid, cynical
Vexatious obsessive (classic subtype, includes hyperaffective features) 	Obnoxious, annoying, menacing; refuses to leave person alone, causes significant psychological distress to person, such as death or pain anxiety or social phobia; follows and excessively attempts to contact person; creepy, intrusive; stalks and harasses person; may believe that s/he is meant to be with person, by God's will or by fate; erotomanic
==Causes of interpersonal obsessive disorder==
According to the Registry, interpersonal obsessive disorder is neuropsychosocial, that is, it is caused by dysfunction of the brain (neuro), the way a person thinks and feels (psycho), and the pressures of society exerted on a person or social rejection (social). Such a person is increasingly lonely and tends to miss even short-term acquaintances because of severe lack of social interaction. They then become obsessive and try to interact with their acquaintance(s). Not everyone with an abnormal brain is afflicted with IOD, nor is everyone who thinks and feels differently from everyone else, nor is everyone who is socially rejected. Rather, it is the interaction of these three factors that gives rise to IOD.
== Differences between interpersonal obsessive disorder and simple stalking ==
Although stalking is a significant sign of interpersonal obsessive disorder, it alone does not indicate the presence of the disorder. To qualify as interpersonally obsessive stalking, the behaviors must be performed in relation to the delusion that a relationship exists, continues, or is destined to exist between the patient and a particular person despite the fact that the person has expressed a lack of desire for relationship or does not know the patient. The patient must persist in the belief regardless of what the person or others tell him/her and despite lack of response from the person.
==Controversy==
There is a debate among psychologists and anti-psychs about whether IOD is a mental disorder or a set of "socially unacceptable" acts. The prosocial psychologists claim that IOD is a real dysfunction of the mind resulting in a dysfunction of social interactions, whereas anti-psychs and proponents of free will claim that IOD is "nothing more than...a 'psychiatristic' label used to alienate and stigmatize the lonely people and those who really miss their former friends or acquaintances" or "a get-out-of-jail-free 'diagnosis' to absolve stalkers of their responsibility for causing physical or emotional harm to innocent people".
Category:Psychiatry
Category:Terran psychiatry
Category:Psychiatric disorders in Terra