ABSTRACT
Prior to the ecumenical council known as Vatican II, scrupulosity was an acknowledged burden borne primarily by Roman Catholics and centered on the confessional. A practicing Catholic could not receive the sacraments without making a comprehensive confession. Scrupulosity is a potentiality in the human condition and awaits only the situation. The high drama of scrupulosity is what attracts the attention of mental health personnel. Scrupulosity will not come into its fullness, however, except under two conditions: a genetic predisposition to more than ordinary anxiety and under circumstances of sufficient stress to surface that level of anxiety. The basal ganglia will supply the vulnerability to anxiety; it cannot, however, create scrupulosity. It can only give it a commonality to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Religious commitment in the small group is demonstrated by empathy; it is in relationships that people find highways to healing. In relationships, opportunity arises to infiltrate the space of an anxiety-sealed sufferer.
