OCD

What we can call subclinical OCD is everywhere.

Psychologists have identified three types of dysfunctional belief important in the development of OCD. The first is an inflated sense of threat and personal responsibility. The second is perfectionism and intolerance of uncertainty. The third is a belief in the over-importance of thoughts and the need to control them.

When our error detection machinery goes into overdrive, we end up with the problem we mentioned earlier: obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Our brain sends a constant, incorrect message that something is wrong, so we keep trying to fix what we think is the source of the problem (out there), but because it is the (internal) message itself that

Obsession has no regard for rational explanation. No pathology of thought can be solved with more thought.

At the other side of the spectrum from boredom is addiction—not a disengagement but its dark reverse, a pathological degree of repetition or perseverance.

In OCD this means, the more that we do something, the less sure we can be that we did.