What Is a "Stereotyped Pattern of Interest"

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From DSM-IV:

What exactly does that mean? The word "stereotyped" is really confusing me. Some examples of patterns of interests that do and do not qualify would be helpful.

Having an interest in the patterns on the back of playing cards to the extent that you know 500 different patterns on sight, with no regard to the fact that this knowledge is of interest to you and you alone.

More realistically, interest so intensely focused and of such narrow scope that is has practical use in only very limited situations. This intensity of focus, when directed to something more socially acceptable, can be a source of great accomplishments.

It means I obsessed about tornadoes for two years straight, and spent hours online reading about tornadoes, talked to my parents almost non-stop about tornadoes and drempt only about tornadoes.

Stereotype: a set form; convention; to give a fixed form to.


In other words an interest that presents as essentially identical in virtually every instance, with little or no variation.

My understanding of the criteria:

The person (patient) has a persistent history of being obsessed with a narrow topic/subject. Narrow meaning they care about little else, or there is a huge contrast of their level of interest compared to other things in life. This pattern of restricted/narrow interests is a persistent characteristic/behavior throughout the person's life.

It's music with me. It's made me an EXCELLENT note-reader and after 20 years of doing this I can "play through" most anything on clarinet or piano on sight.

I've recently taken up handbells, though. While I enjoy composing music more than anything, my interest has been in notated music rather than other ways of learning. My wife and I play duets, and while I learn best by reading music, she doesn't read a note of it and the nature of solo bell playing is such that playing bells while reading notated music is nearly impossible to do. So I help her learn the notes and she helps me with choreography and bit by bit we memorize my compositions.

My sight-reading ability is also tied to my strict attention to detail when I notate my own compositions, so I obsess over the "look" and "feel" of a musical score in making sure that there are no vertical collisions of various markings and that the conductor has no problem at all following it. I number each measure and, in addition, add large rehearsal numbers in rectangular enclosures. I'm just as detailed in my part extractions, and I even obsess over the articulations and expressions of every single note. When I wrote my big work for string quartet and piano, I must have included bowing indications 1/3 of all notes! I even wrote what part of the bow I wanted used and where on the string I wanted the bow. I particularly like the effect of the frog at the bridge on a tremelo, and I was absolutely disgusted that the cellist completely ignored my intentions during that one passage.

I trust no one to handle my music the way I want it done. I'm learning to "let go" a little bit, but it's terribly difficult for me to do.

Part of what has helped me break from this has been playing in a rock band in which I had no way to prepare for rehearsals and I had to instantly learn songs by ear or quick walk-throughs with one of the guitarists. After memorizing so many chord progressions and having two university music degrees behind me to begin with, playing by ear is almost second nature to me now. It took a long time to get there, but I'm surprised how much doing things like that has helped me move from composing for the eyes to composing for the ears. I don't even start by writing anymore--I play my ideas from a keyboard, record them, carefully edit long sequences, and use notation software to "clean up" my recorded performances. In the past I took just as much time actually writing notes as I did editing, so my change of approach has cut the time it takes to compose in half.

There are ways to move past obsessions and "stereotyped patterns of interest," but as it has happened for me it takes a LONG time to accomplish completely.

What about something like this? Kid has a huge interest in mazes. He likes to solve them. He also likes to draw them. He looks for books with new types of mazes and tries to figure out how to invent his own new ones of those new types. Also tries to invent new techniques of his own for drawing mazes.

He does have a few other more traditional solitary interests, but they don't take up as much time. Things like video games.

So is that stereotyped and restricted?

It sounds like it could be one to me.

He should go to the Mensa Maze Master's site. Fun interactive mazes.

Maybe if you ever had a conversation like this?

Coworker: "Why would they plant a sycamore tree in the middle of the city?"

Me: "That is actually a London Plane Tree, a hybrid between the American Sycamore and an Asian species. It was developed to withstand the smog of London. It doesn't grow as tall as the sycamore. Do not confuse that with the European Sycamore which is a type of maple. Or the Sycamore-fig of the Middle East mentioned in the Bible. Anyway, the closest living relative to sycamore and plane trees is the waterlilly-like Lotus Flower!! !

Coworker: ...

A convo similar to this actually took place. Basically, yeah, even the people that say I don't have AS say that this is a trait that I do have similar to that. Trees are not even my main thing though

I could be wrong but I would say, no because they don't take much time. My interests are 24/7 things. I think, talk, read sometimes even dream about my interests. Everything else takes a back-seat. When I'm out with friends (the few that I have), I can't usually wait to leave so I could pursue my interest. Everything outside my interest is a chore, unimportant. When I was into strength training I read over 100 books, probably over 1000 articles, wrote papers, got certifications, etc. I used to get super-excited about every little thing I learned. To me, it felt/feels like an addiction.

Last edited by Kon on 08 Dec 2010, 9:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Turning car number plates into equations.

That count?

I also make anagrams out of shop signs.

I think it just means rigid interests like when I was little I loved collecting lamb toys. Now it is Doctor Who which is kind of acceptable. I have a bunch of to-do lists in front of me too which I don't want to throw away.
Also as a kid I did a lot of repetitive things like step up and down on a step, count my steps, count every red car that passed my school, and the usual line up/ stack things in order.

Why did you do it? Was it enjoyment? I mean did you get excited/pleasure from doing it?

Yes it's a whole lot of fun. The person driving was worrying about something so I looked at the car in front of us and saw variables between the numbers and assigned a meaning to the letters.
I'm not actually sure what type of equation it was. It may have had something to do with velocity.
I'm always looking at random objects and thinking of physics.

I think you misunderstood. My question was for the mazes thing that did take up much time. I was throwing in the fact that mazes were not an exclusive interest due to having other lesser interests like video games that don't take up much time.

I don't think there is a good definition of it. It's just some interest that the majority would deem excessive, obsessive, or just weird.