Research
Obsessive-compulsive disorder, psychological and biological determinants of smoking, research methodology.
The SPIS Model
In the past decade, I have developed with my colleagues a theory of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that we termed the SPIS model, for Seeking Proxies for Internal States. The model postulates that OCD can be understood in terms of doubt about internal states (such as emotions, preferences, physiological states, feelings of satisfaction) and attenuation of access to these internal states. As a result of these difficulties, according to the SPIS model, obsessive-compulsive individuals seek and rely on proxies, which are relatively discernible substitutes for the internals states, such as objective indices, fixed rules, social norms and the opinion of others.
The SPIS model has offered potentially important insights into factors that contribute to the development and maintenance of OCD, and has accrued considerable empirical support from a variety of experimental paradigms.
