Anal retentive From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Common usage
Conversationally, the term is often used to describe a person deemed to be overly obsessed with minor details. Its roots are said to be from Sigmund Freud.
The term is often used in a derogatory sense to describe a person with such attention to detail that the obsession becomes an annoyance to others, and can be carried out to the detriment of the so-called anal-retentive person.
Origins
In the psychology of Freud, the anal stage is said to follow the oral stage of infant/early-childhood development. This is a time when an infant's attention moves from oral stimulation to anal stimulation (including the bowels and bladder), usually synchronous with learning to control their excretory functions, a time of toilet training.
Those whose "obsession with detail" (such as that required to learn to retain feces) continues into later life are often said to be "anal retentive", as opposed to "anal expulsive". Some believe this to be a mild expression of obsessive-compulsive disorder or obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
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