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Dealing with obsessive-compulsive disorder
obsessive compulsive disorder and how behavioral theory explains it
Dealing with obsessive-compulsive disorder
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I have always been fascinated with behavioral disorders, especially OCD. I learned about OCD a few years ago when I was reading a medical journal. At first, it seemed like something very odd. The idea that otherwise normal people can do such strange things, and not be able to control themselves was fascinating. I wanted to know more about this topic, which is why I chose to write my paper on it. I thought that by knowing more about the subject, I will be able to better understand how these people’s lives can be literally taken over by their constant worries and anxiety. Also, I think a lot of people exhibit these behaviors and aren’t even aware that they may have a severe problem, and more importantly, that they can be getting help to control these obsessions and compulsions. I also know that I have a lot of habits that could possibly be considered obsessive, and by writing this paper, I may have a better understanding of my own behaviors, and the ability to distinguish between a habit, and an obsession.
Most importantly, however, thought it would be interesting to write a paper on something I did not already know that much about so that it would keep my interest.
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Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is defined as an anxiety disorder where a person has recurrent unwanted ideas or impulses (called obsessions) and an urge or compulsion to do something to relieve the discomfort caused by the obsession (Mental Health Network, 2000). The obsessive thought range from the idea of losing control, to themes surrounding religion or keeping things or parts of one’s body clean all the time. Compulsions are behaviors that help reduce the anxiety surrounding the obsessions. 90% of the people who have OCD have both obsessions and compulsions. The thoughts and behaviors a person with OCD has are senseless, repetitive, distressing, and sometimes harmful, but they are also difficult to overcome.
Some examples of common obsessions of OCD sufferers are fears of germ contamination, imagining having harmed self or others, imagining losing control of aggressive urges, sexual thoughts or urges, excessive religious or moral doubt, etc. As stated before, most cases of OCD have compulsions to satisfy their obsessions, or urges. Some of
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the compulsions for these urges are, excessive washing, repeating tasks, touching, counting, praying, etc. Some suff...
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...t Encarta Encyclopedia, 1-4. from: Microsoft Software. (2000, April). “Breaking the Cycle”: Help for the Obsessive
Compulsive. [6 paragraphs.] National Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapists [Online serial]. Available http://www.NACBT.org.
University of Florida Brain Institute. (1994). The Florida OCD Inventory OCD Screening Test. Goodman, Dr. Wayne K. University of Florida College of Medicine.
(2000, May). How is OCD Treated? [24 paragraphs.] OCD Foundation [Online serial].
Available http://www.ocfoundation.org/ocf1030a.htm.
Hyman, Bruce & Schwartz, Jeffrey. (1999, December). Tormented by thoughts: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder causes recurring thoughts. [28 paragraphs]. 20/20 news [Online serial].
Available http://abcnews.go.com/onair/popoff/991201ocd/index.html.
Neziraglu, Fugen A. (1998). Over and Over again: Understanding Obsessive- Compulsive Disorder.
Maryland: Madison. (2000, May) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Symptoms. [11 paragraphs.] Mental Health Network [Online serial].
Available http://www.mentalhelp.net/disorders/sx25.htm.
Wood, Samuel E., & Wood, Ellen Green. (1999). The World of Psychology. Mass: Allyn & Bacon.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder has been classified as a type of anxiety disorder under DSM-5, in which there is a presence of obsessions, compulsions or both. Obsessions are defined as “intrusive and mostly nonsensical thoughts, images, or urges that the individual tries to resist or eliminate,” while compulsion are the thought or actions that accompany these obsessions to try to suppress and provide relief. (TEXTBOOK) The obsessions are categorized into four major types, and each is linked with a certain pattern of compulsive behaviors.
OCD is broken down into two components the obsession and the compulsion. The first component; obsession is when an individual is consistently having these reoccurring thoughts or images about a certain problem or issue in their life. For example; an individual that has OCD can have a constant thought or image about getting sick or dying from the various germs or diseases that people contract every day. So this individual goes to the extreme to make sure that they do not contract any of these germs or diseases. That is when the compulsive component begins. This is when the individual takes these extreme actions to protect themselves from whatever they have these high anxiety feelings about. So continuing using the same example; this individual will consistently clean their homes every day for several hours at a time. They tend to clean their hands several times when out in public and are very tedious about where they go and what they touch while in public. They are also very caution about how they interact with other people. They just take extra steps to protect themsel...
Obsessive-Compulsive disorder (OCD) - is characterized by persistent, uncontrollable and unwanted feelings or thoughts (obsessions) and routines or rituals (compulsions) in which individuals engage to try to prevent or rid themselves of these thoughts. In example of common compulsions include washing hands or cleaning repeatedly for fear of germs.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a disease that afflicts up to six million Americans, however all its characteristics are yet to be fully understood. Its causes, triggers, attributes, and variations are still unknown although effective medicines exist to treat the symptoms. OCD is a very peculiar disease as Rapoport discusses it comes in many different forms and have different symptoms yet have many similarities. One sure aspect is that it appears, or at least its symptoms do, out of the blue and is triggered either by stressful experiences or, most of the time, just appears out of nowhere. One example is a boy who's father was hard on him for being affected by the worlds "modern ways", the boy at a high school party tries LSD ( a hallucinatory drug), after that thoughts of whether his mind was dangerously affected by the drug. What seemed like completely appropriate worrying and anxiety turned into attacks of anxiety, he couldn't shake the thoughts that something was wrong with his mind. Essentially he had "his mind on his mind" constantly and that haunted his days his thought were as follows: " did the lsd do anything to my mind? The thought never went away ; instead it got more and more complicated. There must be something wrong with my mind if i am spending so much time worrying about it. Is there something wrong with my mind? Was this from the lsd? Will it ever get better?" (The boy who, J. L. Rapoport 125,126) Dr. Rapoport promptly put him on Anafranil (an anti-depressant, used for OCD, not marketed in the U.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a disorder which causes people to develop an anxiety when certain obsessions or compulsions are not fulfilled. OCD can affect both children and adults with more than half of all adults with OCD stating that they experienced signs as a child. People living with OCD display many obvious signs such as opening and closing a door fifty times because they have to do it “just right”. Others exhibit extreme cleanliness and will wash their hands or take showers as often as they can because they constantly feel dirty. OCD devastates people’s social lives as they are fixated and obsessed with perfection that can take forever to achieve. However people living with OCD are often found to have an above average intelligence and typically excel at school due to their detail oriented mindset, cautious planning and patience. OCD can be caused by many different factors such as genetics or the ever changing world a...
Some symptoms of Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) are fear of germs, perfectionism, and rituals. When someone has OCD they are afraid of germs and might constantly be washing their hands or cleaning their room. Someone who suffers from OCD needs everything to be perfect and they might organize their closet by color size. Their rituals calm their anxiety. Certain rituals are things such as checking the stove a certain number of times to make sure it is off or tap their finger a number of times just because it makes them feel better. Obsessive compulsive disorder can be associated with other mental disorders that cause stress and anxiety, but it can be treated with cognitive behavioral therapy and medication.
There are a couple evident symptoms of OCD. People tend to do an action over and over again to calm their anxiety levels. They tend to not be able to control unwanted thoughts or actions, and spend minimum an hour each day on the obsessing rituals which gets in their way for daily life. Common obsessions are needs for symmetry or order, fear of germs, causing harm to other people, dirt or germs, etc. Common compulsions include constant bathing, hoarding of items, constant counting, etc. These signs can interfere with a person’s life and ruin relationships with others.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can be defined as having repetitive, unwanted, urges and thoughts that raise the need for excessive amounts of time or energy spent on the unwanted urges. OCD typically involved ritualistic like tendencies that result in two types of characteristics, obsessions and compulsions. Obsession can be characterized by the actions and thoughts that intrude one’s mind. As well as the uncontrollable and irrational impulses one must face with OCD. Compulsions can be defined as the act of doing excessive things related to behaviors. People feel the need to act on these compulsions for the sole purposes of releasing the anxiety they feel by the compulsive and reoccurring thoughts. In essence,...
For a person to be diagnosed with OCD, they need to have both an obsession and a compulsion. An obsession is best defined as recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges or images that are experienced during the disturbance as intrusive and unwanted. While compulsions are defined by: repetitive behaviours such as hand washing, ordering, checking in which the person feels they feel strongly compelled to perform in response to their obsession The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM–5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The most empirically sound method of treatment is called Exposure response prevention (Himle & Franklin, 2009). This will be the psychological method of treatment discussed.
The most common symptoms of OCD include: fear of being contaminated by germs or dirt or contaminating others, fear of causing harm to yourself or others, intrusive sexually explicit or violent thoughts and images, excessive focus on religious or moral ideas, fear of losing or not having things you might need, order and symmetry: the idea that everything must line up “just right,” superstitions; excessive attention to something considered lucky or unlucky, excessive double-checking of things, such as locks, appliances, and switches, repeatedly checking in on loved ones to make sure they’re safe, counting, tapping, repeating certain words, spending a lot of time washing or cleaning, ordering or arranging things “just so,” praying excessively or engaging in rituals triggered by religious fear, accumulating “junk” such as old newspapers or empty food containers, and picking at skin. (Symptoms, Behavior, and Tre...
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a type of anxiety disorder that can be best characterized by the recurrent or disturbing thoughts that are labeled as obsessions. Sometime these obsessions can take on the form of intrusive images or the unwanted impulses. The compulsions can come from the repetitive or ritualized behaviors that a person feels driven to perform on a daily basis. The majority of people with the diagnosis of OCD can have both obsessions and compulsions, but most of the times about 20% have obsessions alone while 10% may have the compulsions alone (Goodman M.D., 2013) . Common types that have been illustrated in individual’s diagnoses with OCD can be characterized with concerns of contamination, safety or harm to themselves, unwanted acts of aggression, the unacceptable sexual or religious thoughts, and the need for symmetry or exactness. While some of the most common compulsion can be characterized as excessive cleaning, checking, ordering, and arranging rituals or the counting and repeating routines activities that are done sometimes on a daily basis multiple times in a day.
There are several things that are included in OCD, including its symptoms, treatments and its involvement with the brain. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder recognize their symptoms to be ego-dystonic which are thoughts one would not usually have and not within one’s control but is still a product of one’s mind. The two common symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder are obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions take the form of persistent and uncontrollable thoughts, images, impulses, worries, fears or doubts. An anonymous writer wrote about his/her images, “These images included hitting, stabbing, poisoning and shooting people, even the people I loved the most…” However, compulsions are either repetitive physical behaviors or mental thought rituals that are performed over and over again to help relieve a person’s anxiety. Over time compulsions can become more elaborate and time- consuming. Shirley Brinkerhoff mentions in her book Amanda, a high school girl facing OCD, said, “Then I started having to count my steps. Like, 387 steps to the bus stop, and if missed...
undiagnosed. Patients obsessively wash, check something or hoard things to relieve themselves of an overwhelming anxiety, and are fully aware their behavior is abnormal. This research studies a 23-year-old married woman who sought treatment for a severe washing and cleaning problem and how the patient was treated. I will discuss how the patient was diagnosed, and treated with a form of cognitive behavioral psychotherapy or CBT (exposure and response treatment) and what medications can be used for treatment.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD for short, has affected numerous people; one being Jeff Bell, the author of the book Rewind, Replay, Repeat: A memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. This book has much insight on OCD and touches many interesting facts that some people would never know prior to reading.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a disease that a lot of people suffer with in society especially young adults. While it is not a disease that is deadly, it does affect the victim in every day aspects of their life and can ultimately control their lives. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is defined by the National Institute of Mental Health as, “… a common, chronic and long-lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions) that he or she feels the urge to repeat over and over”. The thoughts that individuals have when suffering through Obsessive Compulsive Disorder cannot be restrained and really can disturb the individual. Thoughts or actions that people may have can range from worrying about daily occurrences, such as washing their hands, to having thoughts of harming people that are close to them. People tend to have these reoccurring compulsions because they believe by doing them or thinking them, they will either prevent something bad from happening or because it eliminates stress that they have. This disease can last a lifetime and can be very detrimental and disabling to how one lives their lives. Individuals can start to see signs of OCD in either late adolescence or even early adulthood and everyone is susceptible. When it comes to classifying this incurable disease, there is much debate on whether or not it a type of anxiety (Abramowitz, Taylor, & McKay, 2009). It is important to be able to understand this mental disorder since so many people are diagnosed with it. While there are treatments for OCD, there are no cures yet. Treatments could range anywhere from taking prescribed medication to just going to therapy and counseling fo...