Obsessive Compulsive Checking

2580 Words6 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Ocd and related disorders essay

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Compulsive Checking Obsessive Compulsive disorder also known in simpler terms as OCD is a disorder that is classified under the anxiety disorders. OCD is the result of paranoia within ones brain. Although having the diagnosis of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a start there are many sub groups and types of OCD that someone may possibly posses either one or a multitude of them. One of the highest diagnosed sub-types of OCD is Compulsive Checking. In this type of OCD the person diagnosed has a fear that they will be harmed or harm someone else by everyday tasks. Compulsive checking can wreak havoc on the inflicted person’s life typically in more ways than one. “Perceptions of danger and intolerance of uncertainty again emerged as cognitive variables that play important roles in mediating obsessive-compulsive checking behavior” (Overton & Menzies, 2005). OCD can be linked with an earlier life experience and can be helped by therapeutic means or medication. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder 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,... ... middle of paper ... ...sufferers with OCD often do not understand the steps they need to take to help the sufferer get through thus, causing tension among family members. According to Van Noppen and Tortora Pato (2009) , “This lets them know that their hard work to get better is being recognized and can be a powerful motivator.” By encouraging family members a person with OCD can get through it easier. Conclusion In conclusion, OCD and compulsive checking can be debilitating to everyday life. If one does the right therapeutic or medication regimen they can seek relief to the rituals they must perform on a daily basis. Even though there are many effects of OCD there is a way to try and get through them. People need to be educated in OCD to further aid the relief of these suffers and their families. One day there might be a proven cause of OCD which will help to better treat the disorder.

Show More
Related

  • Treatment Plan for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

    1322 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Anxiety Disorders : Generalized Anxiety Disorder

    810 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Compulsive Disorder: An Analysis Of Melvin Udall In As Good As It Gets

    1808 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Thought Police Paranoia

    651 Words  | 2 Pages

    The nonstop supervision of the people abolishes instinct and promotes fear, which conditions the people. First, the Party takes away the natural impulse to think freely. To do so, the government set in place a group called the Thought Police. Their main role is to expose any thoughts that are disloyal to Big Brother, “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place… the smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety… anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide.” (Orwell 1.5.145) The Thought Police creates a rising paranoia in the society so that citizens are willing to turn against each other in hopes of keeping on “good terms”

    Read More

  • Compulsive Hoarding: A Stifled Chaos

    752 Words  | 2 Pages

    Addiction can be a disorder filled with denial and regret, and is often sparked by one’s free will. Children are taught, as early as elementary school, to abstain from drugs and alcohol, which constitute the two of the largest culprits of addiction. Naturally, when one ponders addiction, his or her mind automatically travels to the realm of addictive substances, and does not consider what else may constitute as an addiction. What about an addiction affecting nearly a million Americans that does not involve choice? It is an addiction so mysterious that a significant percentage of sufferers go undiagnosed due to hidden mounds of unnecessary clutter. According to Randy Frost and Tamara Hartl, hoarding is medically defined as “the acquisition of, and inability to discard worthless items even though they appear (to others) to have no value” (Defining Compulsive Hoarding). Compulsive hoarding is a devastating disorder that affects an estimated 700,000 to 1.4 million people in the United States (Maidment).

    Read More

  • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

    2524 Words  | 6 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Nature vs Nurture

    926 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ( Ocd )

    1616 Words  | 4 Pages

    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. Obsessive compulsive disorder is a psychological disorder with symptoms of obsessive thoughts and compulsive actions, such as cleaning, checking, and counting. OCD is linked to other disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and experiential avoidance disorder (EA). OCD and ADHD have similar effects in children, being that they both lead to procrastination when trying to complete simple tasks. People with OCD and EA both have consistent negative thoughts, but the same treatments can be used for both.

    Read More

  • Treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

    989 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): The Repetitive Controller

    575 Words  | 2 Pages

    All people have to double check things once in a while, like if a door is locked or if the lights are off. But people with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD, have an urge to check and recheck items and the disorder “controls” what people do, and how people do tasks by causing them to repeatedly see how something looks or if something is organized. OCD can be a challenging disorder to live with as it causes anxiety levels to build up.

    Read More

  • Process Addictions

    2456 Words  | 5 Pages

    A process addiction is being addicted to, or dependent on a certain behaviour; a process. It is an impulsive behaviour that disrupts your life. It is based on behaviour because it’s about the person’s involvement (Ferentzy). It has been said that process addiction has no physical limits, as with a substance abuse problem. Nor is it likely that this behaviour pattern would tap into the reward pattern and motivational system as directly, as certain substances can (Ferentzy). However, regardless of whether they are speaking about a process or a substance addiction, addictions interfere with a person’s ability to truly know themselves, their spirituality, and their world around them (David Capuzzi, 2008, p. 35).

    Read More

  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

    1242 Words  | 3 Pages

    Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry. The acts of those who have OCD may appear paranoid and potentially psychotic. However, OCD sufferers generally recognize their obsessions and compulsions as irrational and may become further distressed by this realization. Obsessive–compulsive disorder affects children and adolescents, as well as adults. Roughly one third to one half of adults with OCD reports a childhood onset of the disorder, suggesting the continuum of anxiety disorders across the life span. OCD may be a result of changes in your body's own natural chemistry or brain functions. OCD also may have a genetic component, but specific genes have yet to be identified. OCD may stem from behavior-related habits that you learned over time. Doctors do not know the exact cause of OCD, factors that may play a role include head injury, infections, and abnormal function in certain areas of the brain and family genes seems to play a strong role. Most people who develop OCD it shows the symptoms by age 30. Often the person carries out the behaviors to get rid of the obsessive thoughts, but this only provides temporary relief. Not doing the obsessive rituals can cause great anxiety.

    Read More

  • Compulsive Hoarding Syndrome

    1788 Words  | 4 Pages

    Imagine how much trash and waste people discard in their lifetimes. Now imagine a person living in that waste they have accumulated in their lifetime stored in their own homes because of their inability to discard the useless items. This is what day-to-day life is like for a compulsive hoarder. Compulsive hoarding is a chronic behavioral syndrome that is defined by a person's extreme retention of useless items and crippling inability to discard such items. Compulsive hoarding has been traditionally recognized amongst psychiatrists and researchers in human behavior as a sub-type of obsessive-compulsive disorder due to similar symptoms hoarders have with those that suffer from OCD. However, there is substantial evidence that proves contrary. Hoarders often have several other behavioral or physical symptoms that are not typical of a person with OCD, hoarders also have genetic and physical anomalies different from OCD, and finally, most compulsive hoarders do not respond to treatments intended for OCD patients. Because of these differences, compulsive hoarding should be seen as a separate syndrome apart from OCD, so that the disorder may be categorized and studied accurately in order to pursue more effective treatments.

    Read More

  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

    608 Words  | 2 Pages

    OCD is an anxiety disorder that describes someone with either obsessive thoughts or compulsive behavior or with both (Thomsen 1). Anybody with this psychological disorder have thoughts and a repetitive behavior going on in their head that they cannot stop; all these thoughts can result to a highly anxiety disorder. Obsessions can result to the compulsions that are also repetitive behaviors (“Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Part II” 2). There are different kinds of obsessions one person has, but the most common are fear of contamination, fear of behaving in a socially unacceptable manner, need for exactness, and fear of making a mistake. The most common compulsions are cleaning, constantly checking things; such as making sure the door is locked, ordering, and avoidance (“Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Part II” 2). Less than 20% of people have obsessions or compulsions and at least 80 % of people with OCD have both obsessions and compulsions (Bakalar 3).

    Read More

  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

    1590 Words  | 4 Pages

    OCD is an anxiety disorder that is described as someone with obsessive thoughts and/or compulsive behavior. People with OCD are caught up in repetitive behavior and thoughts that they cannot stop. Obsession is defined as unwanted, recurrent, and disturbing thoughts that a person cannot stop. These thoughts are unable to be suppressed and can result in severe anxiety. Compulsions are the result of the obsession. These are repetitive, ritualized behaviors that are done to alleviate the anxiety caused by the obsession. (2) The most common obsessions are fear of contamination, fear of causing harm to another, fear of making a mistake, fear of behaving in a socially unacceptable manner, need for symmetry or exactness, and excessive doubt. The most common compulsions are cleaning/washing, checking, arranging/organizing, collecting/hoarding, and counting/repeating. (3) Some people with OCD have rituals that help relieve the anxiety; however, that relief is only temporary. (4) Most patients (at least 80%) with OCD have both obs...

    Read More

More about Obsessive Compulsive Checking

Open Document