What is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Q: My friend’s brother washes his hands constantly. Why does he do that?

A: It sounds like he may have OCD is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. This is another illness that is an anxiety disorder which I talked about in an earlier blog. This is a condition in which people suffer from relentless, unwanted, upsetting and obsessive thoughts which are usually accompanied by rituals or compulsions to control or reduce the anxiety these thoughts produce but usually the rituals end up controlling them. Performing such rituals is not pleasurable and they are time consuming. At best, it produces temporary relief from the anxiety created by obsessive thoughts. Usually, obsessions have to do with contamination, doubting or worrying, disturbing sexual or religious thoughts.

 Healthy people also have rituals, such as checking to see if the stove is off several times before leaving the house. The difference is that people with OCD perform their rituals even though doing so interferes with daily life and they find the repetition distressing. Although most adults with OCD recognize that what they are doing is senseless, some adults and most children may not realize that their behavior is out of the ordinary.

OCD can be accompanied by eating disorders, other anxiety disorders, or depression. It strikes men and women in roughly equal numbers and usually appears in childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood.

What can be done?

OCD is treated with medication, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure-based therapy.

Exposure-based therapy can be briefly described as people facing situations that cause them fear or anxiety and over time they become less sensitive to them.

Cognitive behavioral therapy allows a person to change unproductive thought patterns and gain control over their unwanted behaviors. With therapy and repeated practice, people can develop skills that enable them to identify anxiety-related thoughts and beliefs, identify common distortion in their thinking, examine the evidence that supports and does not support their fearful appraisals, and develop less-threatening alternative responses to the feared object or situation.

The cognitive part helps people change the thinking patterns that support their fears, and the behavioral part helps people change the way they react to anxiety-provoking situations.