OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER - OCD

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Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder that has a pattern of disturbing thoughts, images, irrational fears, and impulses. These manifest as repetitive behaviors that appear recurrently and do not disappear no matter how many efforts are made to avoid it.

 

These thoughts, images or impulses make up a spectrum of the person's obsessions and are accompanied by anxiety, fear, disgust and are experienced in an exaggerated or meaningless way.

The effect of these ideas is such that they make the person doubt himself and his capacity for self-control.

 

Among the intrusive thoughts that produce that fear and concern in a person who is affected by this disorder are those manifested in behaviors such as:

 

• Cleaners: they are people whose obsession is related to contamination and contagion and among their ritual behaviors is the use of gloves, exhaustive cleaning, showering and continuous hand washing.

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• Computers: this type of obsession-compulsion is related to a loss of control and order, so its ritual focuses on placing things in a certain way following very rigid guidelines.

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• Verifiers: they are people whose obsession-compulsion is related to the possible occurrence of catastrophes or dangers and for which they repeatedly check the gas keys, water, door locks or padlocks and electronic devices.

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• Accumulators: detected in those who accumulate objects of all kinds and from which they cannot get rid of for fear that they will be needed at some point.

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• Obsessiveness with aggressive content: this type of obsession is related to the possibility of harming others or themselves, the ritual is usually related to the avoidance of situations such as making a meal to avoid contact with knives, getting away from subway platforms , being away from a balcony, etc.

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• Onychophagic: constantly biting and biting nails.

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• Pure obsessives: they are people who experience obsessions, but have not developed any type of ritual to neutralize the anxiety.

 

TREATMENT OF OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER

 

In the first instance, psychological therapy is suggested for this disorder, especially those supported by cognitive-behavioral techniques that offer:

 

• Training in relaxation and breathing control that facilitate the management of anxiety in patients with obsessive-compulsive behavior.

 

• Systematic desensitization for the extinction of anxiety associated with obsessiveness and that includes a controlled and gradual exposure of the patient to anxiogenic situations without the need to use a calming ritual, in order to naturally extinguish the associated anxiety.

 

• Cognitive restructuring of distorted beliefs and automatic thoughts that maintain the dynamics of that obsessiveness.

 

• Psychopedagogical strategies for the management of paralyzing doubts that arise during this disorder.

 

• Emotional management to neutralize the emotions that accompany the obsession, including: guilt, fear and sadness.

 

All these strategies are offered to the patient accompanied by written help material and recommendations to achieve the optimal development of the therapy.