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Constantly overthinking a topic, is not a rare concept. However, there is a line between healthy overthinking and obsession.
Obsession is never healthy, no matter how much a person may try to defend themself. If it gets to the point that someone sounds desperate to get their point across then it has reached the level of fixation. There are many ways people can define the word, Oxford Languages defines fixation as “having an obsessive interest in or feeling about someone or something.”
In a literal sense, if someone stays fixated on something then that’s all they seem to think about. A fixation usually starts as something that is not a major deal to the person. It is simply a vast thought that crosses the person’s mind every so often and slowly becomes more relevant as time goes on.
BetterHelp, a professional mental health platform, defines the start as “unresolved issues in previous psychological stages of personality development.”
This idea was originally by Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis.
The issue with fixations is that often, people do not even realize that they have them.
According to Verywell Mind, Freud believed that fixations that get to extensive points “could lead to adult personalities that are overly vain, exhibitionistic, and sexually aggressive.”
On the other hand, persons with a fixation many times feel “stuck and [un]knowing how to move forward” (BetterHelp). This feeling makes people feel worse about themselves and can often cause or worsen mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, and drug use problems.
One way people attempt to handle fixations is by Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the process of transference. The process of transference is, in simple terms, taking an old fixation and replacing it with a new one. So not really getting rid of nor helping the person’s situation, but it’s how it can be handled. Another way fixation is handled is by Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT is a way to help better someone’s thoughts, emotions, and behavioral patterns that require being shifted thus shifting a person’s outlook on life (Verywell Mind).
Fixations are a natural occurrence in life and oftentimes are overlooked by not only the people around but also by the person themselves. The addiction starts as something small to something much larger and can get worse the more you are away from it. This leads to heightened reactions from it such as worsened adult personalities and the feeling of being stuck which leads to possible severe or worsening of mental illness’. A person attempting to recover from a fixation will most likely never fully recover from it as the most common way to move on is to find a new fixation and “forget” the previous one. Fixations mess up, not only the mind but also the body too. It can take a happy person to a mentally depressive one because they would only be satisfied by the fixation and nothing else.
