ON OBSESSIVE IMPULSE TO WRITE (September 4, 2015)
Much has been written about the obsessive impulse to write, which comes under different Greek or Latin names, such as graphomania, scribomania, and hypergraphia. Related to these learned notions are those of graphorrhea and logorrhea, where the last one stands for “verbosity” in the English language. I have long been curious about all these notions and various attempts to give them meaning in fields such as psychoanalysis and psychiatry. Sadly, I have never found anything that seems to pertain to my own case. Most examples of the obsessive impulse to write in the literature have to do with incoherent writing, which often follows unusual but recognizable patterns, such as incessant repetition, for example. How about coherent writing that follows a clear line of development, though? Even more, how about coherent writing that has a laudable goal? My impulse to write may be obsessive, and I am ready to admit it, but it certainly does not fit any description I can find that can be associated with mental disorder or even illness of any description. In short, I am none the wiser after everything I have read about graphomania, scribomania, and hypergraphia. Am I to blame, or is the blame squarely with all the psychoanalysts and psychiatrists who have bantered about these conditions to date?