What is pedantry, and how can it become a pathology?

We all have an idea of what pedantry is. Compliance with established rules and requirements is meticulous. Speaking the word "pedant", we imagine a neat, reserved and punctual person who carefully performs his work and does not need for this in control from the side.

What is pedantry as a pathology ?

Pedantry manifests itself as a pathology not immediately: at first glance, we are just a very meticulous person, accustomed to accuracy and order in everything. But over time it becomes clear that the pedantic psychopath simply is not capable of making decisions. To make the "last step", to move from a theoretical solution to a problem to an action, is an impossible task for him.

Manic pedantry, such a man a hundred times recheck the correctness of his conclusions, even in those cases when a sensible person has long been clear. In psychiatry, these people, who are accustomed to chewing on an endless "mental chewing gum," are called an ankastastic type.

Before closing the front door behind itself, anankast will repeatedly double-check whether all household appliances are turned off. And any homework will take much more time for him than for an ordinary person: after all, everything should be washed and wiped not just well, but ideally. For this, the dishes are washed 2-3 times, rags are washed with soap, and all, including socks, is subjected to ironing.

What is pedantry in the workplace: is it so bad?

True, pedantic personalities, unlike anankasts, do not always show such meticulousness, and often their behavior remains completely acceptable to society. Such people in the workplace, as a rule, have a lot of advantages due to their seriousness, responsibility and ability to do work "perfectly well". Pedants are formalists, pettifoggers and "bores", but not a single detail does not go away from their attention, they do not take hasty decisions and everything fits thoroughly. For this they are appreciated by their superiors and respected by their colleagues.

What is pedantry, which has become obsessional

Pedantry can cause damage only when it is supported by neuroses, that is, it becomes painful. In such cases, anxiety and inability to make a final decision are especially acute. Checking dozens of times, whether the work is done well enough, anankast can not decide for himself that it is already finished. He starts to noticeably lag behind his colleagues, which makes him work overtime, getting deeper into the abyss of uncertainty about the results of his activities.

Anankastam inherent hypochondriacal experiences, suspiciousness, anxiety. And people who are prone to this pathological condition, listed fears take a bizarre character: anankast is afraid not of death from any disease, he is afraid of being afraid of this death. He is not inherent in fear of being robbed, but in fear of being robbed, etc.

This leads to a mass of "counteractions", rituals that must protect anancast from obsessive ideas. At the same time, he understands the absurdity of what is happening, but nothing can be done about it. In neglected states, anancasm develops into manic-depressive pedantry, manifested by paroxysmal manifestations of morbid pedanticism, reaching the total impossibility of engaging in any kind of activity and causing, respectively, a feeling of impotence and severe depression in the patient.