Where the character disorder is very impulsive and can be easily triggered to intense emotional reactions, the compulsive is exaggeratedly self-controlled and keeps his impulses and emotions very carefully contained. Where the character disorder tends to act without thinking, the compulsive tends to always be thinking ahead, and he plans his movements very carefully. Where the character disorder pays little attention to the voice of conscience and often behaves in socially improper ways, the compulsive is dominated by conscience and makes a fetish of propriety. Where the character disorder is very bodily oriented and emphasizes muscular action, the compulsive lives in his head and tends to do things in a very exacting, precise, and deliberate manner. Where the character disorder's aggression often creates messes and gets him in trouble with his social surroundings, the compulsive goes to great lengths to avoid mistakes and to keep things neat, clean, and orderly. Where the character disorder dislikes and resists schedules and rules and regulations, the compulsive can't get enough of them, and he tends to build his life around adherence to prescribed rituals, practices, and timetables. Where the character disorder is overtly, actively aggressive, the compulsive is covertly, sometimes very stubbornly, passive-aggressive. Where the character disorder tends to live in the present moment and squanders his time, the compulsive lives primarily in the future and can't bear to waste a minute. Where the character disorder makes many mistakes and doesn't seem to learn from them, the compulsive lives in dread of error and strives mightily for perfection. Where character disorders tend to be poor learners of lessons, compulsives tend to be great absorbers of information and often adopt a scholarly, pedantic approach to life. Where character disorders will haul off and sock someone who rubs them the wrong way, the compulsive tends to be nitpicky critical of those with whom he does not agree. Where the character disorder rarely criticizes himself, the compulsive tends to be super self-critical. They both have at least one thing in common, however. They both tend to think that there is only one way, their way, and they both resist attempts by others to make them do things that they don't want to do. Neither likes authoritative control, but they resist it in very different ways.

The main issue in the compulsive's life is control. He needs to avoid making mistakes. He is most comfortable when he is in highly predictable circumstances, so that he always knows what to expect and is not likely to be caught off guard, where he might slip and make a mess of things. Rules, regulations, conventions, rituals, proprieties, plans, schedules, order, regularity, guidelines, highly detailed knowledge, and the like all enhance his sense of predictability and, hence, control. In his attempts to keep himself tightly controlled, he is inclined to want to impose his notions of order and propriety onto his material and social surroundings. Because this does not usually sit well with others, however, he often ends up creating messy situations even as he is doing his best to get everything cleaned-up and in order. Because of his too-narrow focus on life's minutia, his over-reliance on intellect, and his avoidance of emotion, the compulsive often gets the absolute letter of things, but tends to miss the spirit of things. He is great at noting and dealing with parts and their interrelationships, but the overall, wholistic view often eludes him. Because of all of the holding in and bottling up of emotion and impulse, the compulsive is often a very tense, uptight person. A lot of internal pressure tends to build up beneath his carefully controlled surface, and, from time to time, like a volcano erupting, he may lose control and give into an intense outburst of emotion and impulse, but then he quickly settles back into another, lengthy, often even more exaggerated period of excessive self-control.

In the image, the compulsive individual is depicted as very neatly and properly dressed and as focusing in very narrowly on the details of the kind of intricately organized subject matter that often appeals to his need for precision, organization, and unemotional, rational analysis. His posture is upright and rather stiff-looking. The big, buckled band around his body is meant to symbolize the compulsive's need to keep emotions and impulses tightly contained, since, while the head is often thought of as the seat of intellect, the body is thought of as the seat of emotion and impulse. The band has ropes coming off it to bind people in the compulsive's surroundings, since his great need for self-control often causes him to impose tight controls on the people around him, as well. The altar in the foreground with a basin of water, a cake of soap, and brush is meant to symbolize the compulsive's tendency to be ritualistically clean and neat, as well as his more general ritualistic tendency. The book over his head signifies his fascination with detailed information and knowledge, his scholarly and pedantic qualities, and, more generally, the precedence that ideas and intellect have over emotion and action in his life. The dirt on the floor beneath his feet and behind him is meant to depict the inadvertent messiness that he usually manages to create without awareness as a consequence of his extreme efforts to avoid making mistakes. The volcano in the distance represents the compulsive's potential for periodic, pressure-relieving eruptions of emotion and impulse.