Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (ocd)

Obsessive compulsive disorder is a disease that many people know of, but few people know about. Many people associate repeated washing of hands, or flicking of switches, and even cleanliness with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), however there are many more symptoms, and there are also explanations for those symptoms. In this paper, I will describe what obsessive compulsive disorder is, explain some of the effects of it, and explain why it happens. I will also attempt to prove that while medication doesn't cure OCD, it vastly improves one's quality of life. Furthermore I intend to show that behavior therapy (cognitive based therapy) is another useful tool in helping a person to overcome their OCD.

According to the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder foundation (www.ocfoundation.org), "OCD is a medical brain disorder that causes problems in information processing." They compare OCD to a brain hiccup; the brain gets stuck on a certain thought and cannot move forward. The brain is incapable of dealing with thoughts of worry or doubt. This causes many side effects that can clearly distinguish a person as OCD. The text book for Dr. Steinberg's Brain and Behavior class (that I took last year)spells it out a little clearer. "Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) consists of two behaviors that occur in the same person, obsessions and compulsions." (Garrett, 387)

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a form of an anxiety disorder. The WHO classifies OCD as one of the top ten most "disabling illnesses." (The Practitioner, 1) The most well known side effects of OCD is the repeated washing of one's hands. However, there is more to this compulsive hand washing then meets the eye. While it could technically be classified as a need to feel cleansed, it is actually more of a fear of germs or other impurities. The cleansing will proceed until the person is satisfied, which in some cases is never. This is the reason a person with OCD will wash their hands repeatedly. People with OCD also are known to have a fear of unlucky numbers or words, illness or injury (which relates back to the hand washing), uncertainty, thinking bad or harmful thoughts against someone, object symmetry, and many other issues, which to a non OCD person, seem almost miniscule.

How is it possible for people to get OCD? It is not something that can be transmitted from person to person, like a virus or the common cold, but rather it is a chemical imbalance in a person's brain, and it is genetically transmitted. Scientists know that there are certain genes that cause this disorder, but as of now, they haven't been able to pinpoint the specific gene. It is believed that OCD is caused as a result of a problem with the chemicals that deliver nerve cells to the brain. When the nerve cells are unable to reach the brain, or there are not enough delivered to the brain, the person can begin to dwell on certain things, leaving them with a feeling of doubt and worry. There are some rare cases, where young children get OCD when they are recovering from Strep Throat. While this is extremely rare, the symptoms appear out of nowhere, and are extremely severe.

Obsessive compulsive disorder was touched upon by Sigmund Freud in 1909. In "Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis" Freud described a patient he had named "Rat Man", who was a young man with a fairly well versed education. "Rat man suffered from blasphemous and sexual obsessions and vivid, recurring images of rats devouring him and his father." (Summers, 54) Freud believed that the above listed symptoms were a result of failure to have been properly toilet trained, and also a form of the Oedipus complex.

While today, Freud's theory behind OCD has been completely disproved, that was one of the first documented cases of the disease. According to Marc Summers' book Everything In Its Place, doctors are better at treating cases of OCD, then they are with understanding it. In 1986, doctors prescribed Anafranil on people with diagnosed OCD. This was extremely important, not because the drug made the symptoms disappear (which it did not), but because some patients symptoms greatly diminished, and doctors learned that OCD is in fact treatable by medication. This discovery came at an ideal time, as it had recently been discovered that OCD was twice as common as 'psychiatric disorders of schizophrenia', bipolar disorder, and panic disorder. All of those disorders are present in approximately one percent (1%) of the United States population. According to Marc Summers, "Two to 3 percent of Americans have OCD." (Summers, 55)

There have been recent studies that show that medication is a step in the right direction as far as making the disease more manageable. However, in some cases medication is not enough. In the study done in November of last year, the subject, eleven year old Abigail displayed classic symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. She was afraid of germs, and as a result, she changed her clothes and washed her hands frequently. She was medicated for a little over a year, when her body seemed to develop a tolerance to the medication and the symptoms prevailed. In this case, Abigail would need to take a more serious approach to ridding herself of her obsessive compulsive symptoms. These approaches might include behavior therapy, or constant monitoring at a facility. (Nangle, O'Grady, Sallinen, 1442)

In another study conducted by the American Academic Child Adolescent Psychology Journal, the drug fluoxetine was tested on OCD sufferers. This was a fairly successful study, as the majority of subjects on medication had drastic improvements in their OCD symptoms. No subjects were forced to stop taking the drug due to adverse reactions, and even after sixteen weeks (four months), there continued to be positive results stemming from the drug. (Multiple Authors, Journal of Academic Child Adolescence Psychiatry 1438)

You just read that OCD was discovered to be a treatable illness; here's a brief look at how. The Anafranil manipulated the body's serotonin levels, and this in turn caused the symptoms of OCD to diminish. Therefore, scientists assumed that the cause of obsessive compulsive disorder had something to do with this chemical makeup. A neuron consists of a cell body, and a lot of tentacles. The longest tentacle is the axon. The synapse is the gap between two axons. Impulses are generated in the cell body, and then arrive at the tip of the axon. This forms an impulse, which then gets turned into chemical messengers called 'neurotransmitters'. These neurotransmitters get released into the synapse. Then, the neurotransmitters cross the synapse