Instinctual impulses in obsessive compulsive disorder: A neuropsychological and psychoanalytic interface.

Psychopathology of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) that has been characterized by a conflict between the ego and superego on one hand, and aggressive and sexual impulses emerging from the id on the other, and employment of characteristic defenses to combat intense conflicts being connected with ones' biological disposition from the psychoanalytic school of thought now gets empirical foundation from neuroimaging research. The findings disregard the psychological construct, exclusively establishing the neurobiology of the disorder. With the objective to study the impact of sexual and aggressive impulses on the executive functions and processing speed in the patient group, 20 OCD patients (11 males, 9 females) and 20 normal control subjects, matched for all relevant variables including age, sex, educational level and handedness were studied.