Passages: An expert on obsessive-compulsive disorder

Published 10:43 pm Friday, March 6, 2009

Leon Salzman, 93, a psychoanalyst who wrote the first comprehensive work on the causes and treatment of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, died Feb. 28 at his home in Bethesda, Md., of complications from a stroke.

Salzman had a long-running private practice in psychiatry and psychoanalysis in Washington and was on the faculty of Georgetown University for more than 30 years. Two of his books, “The Obsessive Personality” (1968) and “Treatment of the Obsessive Personality” (1980), have become standard texts.

He was a member of federal appeals Judge David Bazelon’s project on law and psychiatry, which developed the standard legal definition of insanity. Salzman also spoke regularly about the intersection of religious faith and psychiatry and was a consultant to the Holy See.

Salzman, who wrote four books, many chapters in other books and more than 30 journal articles, also made frequent appearances in the popular press, helping struggling reporters convey psychological concepts in everyday language.

Workaholics, he once told the Newhouse News Service, “work to overcome anxiety rather than to achieve a particular goal; his life is empty without assigned tasks.”

Nor is being on time always a healthy trait. “It can be a compulsive behavior, a kind of ritualistic performance that helps you feel secure and like you’ve got control of your life,” he told The Washington Post. “People who are always on time view it as a measure of their worthwhileness, their status depends on perfectionism.”

If one’s world isn’t full of time-centric workaholics, there’s always another danger. Salzman told Time magazine in 1987 that “obsessive behavior is widespread among executives,” verifying the suspicions of many in the nonexecutive workforce.