共用题干第三篇<br><br>Karen Rusa was a 30-year-old woman and the mother of four children. For the past several months Karen had been experiencing repetitive thoughts that centered around her children's safety. She frequently found herself imagining that a serious accident had occurred;she was unable to put these thoughts out of her mind.On one such occasion she imagined that her son,Alan,had broken his leg playing football at school. There was no reason to believe that an accident had occurred,but she kept thinking about the possibility until she finally called the school to see if Alan was all right. Even after receiving their assurance that he had not been hurt,she described herself as being somewhat surprised when he later arrived home unharmed.Karen also noted that her daily routine was seriously hampered by an extensive series of counting work that she performed throughout each day.Specific numbers come to have a special meaning to her;she found that her preoccupation with these numbers was interfering with her ability to perform everyday activities.One example was grocery shopping. Karen believed that if she selected the first item,some dreadful thing would happen to her first child, if she selected the second item,some unknown disaster wonld fall on her second child, and so on for the four children.Karen's preoccupation with numbers extended to other activities, most notable the pattern in which she smoked cigarettes and drank coffee.If she had one cigarette, she believed that she had to smoke at least four in a row or one of her children would be harmed in some way. If she drank one cup of coffee,she felt compelled to drink four. Karen acknowledged the unreasonableness of these rules,but,nevertheless,maintained that she felt more comfortable,when she observed them earnestly.When she was occasionally in too great a hurry to observe these rules, she experienced considerable anxiety in the form of a subjective feeling of dread and fear. She described herself as tense,uneasy and unable to relax during these periods.What does the word"preoccupation"mean?