You are on page 1of 11

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Psychological Disorders
A psychological disorder, also known as a mental disorder, is a pattern of behavioral or psychological
symptoms that impact multiple life areas and/or create distress for the person experiencing these
symptoms.
Types Of Psychological Disorders
There are two types of psychological disorder:
Neurotic Disorder
Psychotic Disorder

What is the Difference between Neurotic and Psychotic?
The terms neurotic and psychotic are both used to describe conditions or illnesses that affect mental
health. Though neurotic and psychotic are both relative to mental health, there are differences between
neurotic and psychotic conditions.
Neurotic Disorder:
A neurotic disorder can be any mental imbalance that causes or results in distress. In general, neurotic
conditions do not interfere with normal day to day functions, but rather create the very common
symptoms of depression, anxiety, or stress. It is believed that most people suffer from some sort of
neurosis as a part of human nature.
As an example, some people are afraid or unable to speak in front of large crowds. As a result, any
situation that might warrant public speaking can cause symptoms from nervous nausea to vomiting, or
from trembling to excessive perspiration. Some people suffer more severe symptoms of neurosis than
others, and some forms of neurosis are more marked, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder. However,
neurosis is not as severe as psychosis.
Psychoses Disorder:
As a psychiatric term, psychosis refers to any mental state that effect thought, perception, and
judgment. Psychotic disorder might affect a person with or without a mental disease. A person
experiencing a psychotic episode might hallucinate, become paranoid, or experience a change in
personality.
Generally speaking, the psychotic state is not permanent. Psychotic is also not the same as insane,
which is both a medical and a legal description for a person who cannot be held accountable for his or
her actions. Some of psychotic disorders are schizophrenia, somatoform disorder, melancolia etc
The primary difference between neurotic and psychotic is the manner in which they affect mental
health. Neurotic behavior can be naturally present in any person and linked to a developed personality.
Psychotic behavior can come and go as a result of various influences. A person suffring from neuretic
disorder can live a normal life. Bat a person suffering from psychoses can not live a naormal life or can
not have a public interaction.
Anxiety Disorder
Anxiety disorder are the type of neurotic disorder which is less severe form of mental illness that do not
normally require hospitalization. Anxiety is difficult to define filly. It refers to a complex set of events
involving all of the dimensions of behavior, particularly the effective, motivational , cognativeand
biological. Moreover the pattern of anxiety may differ from person to person and from time to time.
Liability and depression are also common emotional components of anxiety.
Sub types of anxiety disorder:
Generalized anxiety
Panic
Phobic
Obsessive compulsive disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Is a disorder of the brain and behavior. OCD causes severe anxiety in those affected. OCD involves
both obsessions and compulsions that take a lot of time and get in the way of important activities the
person values. If a person have OCD, a warning system in their brain is not working correctly. There
brain is telling them that they are in danger when they are not.

The Different Types of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Traditionally it has been thought that there are four main categories of Obsessive-Compulsive
Disorder (OCD), as well as numerous sub-types of the illness within each category. However,
typically a persons OCD will fall into one of the following four areas.
Checking
Contamination / Mental Contamination
Hoarding
Ruminations / Intrusive Thoughts
This list categorizes the most common forms of OCD.
Types of OCD:
1. Checking - the need to check is the compulsion, the obsessive fear might be to prevent
damage, fire, leaks or harm. Common checking includes:
Gas or electric stove knobs (fear of causing explosion and therefore the house to burn down).
Water taps (fear of flooding property and damaging irreplaceable treasured items).
Door locks (fear of allowing a burglar to break in and steal or cause harm).
House alarm (fear of allowing a burglar to break in and steal or cause harm).
Windows (fear of allowing a burglar to break in and steal or cause harm).
Appliances (fear of causing the house to burn down).
House lights (fear of causing the house to burn down).
Car doors (fear of car being stolen).
Re-reading postal letters and greetings cards before sealing / mailing (fear of writing something
inappropriate or offensive).
Candles (fear of causing the house to burn down).
Route after driving (fear of causing an accident).
Wallet or purse (fear of losing important bank cards or documents).
Illnesses and symptoms online (fear of developing an illness, constant checking of symptoms).
People Calling and Texting (fear of harm happening to a loved one).
Reassurance (fear of saying or doing something to offend or upset a loved one).
Re-reading words or lines in a book over and over again (fear of not quite taking in the information or
missing something important from the text).
Schizophrenia Symptoms (fear that OCD is a precursor to Schizophrenia which will cause them to lose
control).
The checking is often carried out multiple times, sometimes hundreds of times, and for hours on end,
resulting in the person being late for work, dates and other appointments. This can have a serious
impact on a persons ability to hold down jobs and relationships. The checking can also cause
damage to objects that are constantly being checked.
2. Contamination
The need to clean and wash is the compulsion, the obsessive fear is that something is
contaminated and/or may cause illness, and ultimately death, to a loved one or oneself.
Using public toilets (fear of contracting germs from other people).
Coming into contact with chemicals (fear of contamination).
Shaking hands (fear of contracting germs from other people).
Touching door knobs/handles (fear of contracting germs from other people).
Using public telephones (fear of contracting germs from other people).
Waiting in a GPs surgery (fear of contracting germs from other people).
Visiting hospitals (fear of contracting germs from other people).
Eating in a cafe/restaurant (fear of contracting germs from other people).
Washing clothes in a launderette (fear of contracting germs from other people).
Touching bannisters on staircases (fear of contracting germs from other people).
Touching poles (fear of contracting germs from other people).
Being in a crowd (fear of contracting germs from other people).
Avoiding red objects and stains (fear of contracting HIV/AIDS from blood like stains).
Clothes (having to shake clothes to remove dead skin cells, fear of contamination).
Excessive Tooth Brushing (fear of leaving minute remains of mouth disease).
Cleaning of Kitchen and Bathroom (fear of germs being spread to family).
The cleaning or washing is often carried out multiple times often accompanied by rituals of repetitive
hand or body washing until the person feels it is clean, rather than someone without OCD who will
wash or clean once until they see they are clean. The time this takes can have a serious impact on
a persons ability to hold down jobs and relationships and there is also a secondary physical health
impact of the constant scrubbing and cleaning on the skin, especially the hands. A person may also
avoid entire places if they experienced contamination fears there previously. There is also a cost
implication of the constant use and purchase of cleaning products, and also of items (especially
electrical) that are damaged through excessive liquid damage.
Mental Contamination
In addition to the more familiar type of contamination, that is commonly perceived
to be the stereo-typical image of OCD, involving someone that washes their hands repeatedly after
coming into contact with potentially dirty objects or environments, there is also a less obvious form
called 'mental contamination'.
The feelings of mental contamination share some qualities with contact contamination but have
some distinctive features. Feelings of mental contamination can be evoked by times when a person
perhaps felt badly treated, physically or mentally, through critical or verbally abusive remarks. It is
almost as if they are made to feel like dirt, which creates a feeling of internal uncleanliness even
in the absence of any physical contact with a dangerous/dirty object. A distinctive feature of mental
contamination is that the source is almost always human, unlike the contact contamination that is
caused by physical contact with inanimate objects.
The person will engage in repetitive and compulsive attempts to wash the dirt away by showering
and washing which is where the similarities with traditional contamination OCD return.
3. Hoarding
Long considered to be part of OCD is the inability to discard useless things commonly referred to
as hoarding.
In the past it was suggested that hoarding, as a subtype of OCD, may be less responsive to treatment than other
forms. However, as a result of more recent research, and due to a greater understanding of this problem, there
is now significant evidence to suggest that treatment can be just as effective for this type of OCD, as with
others.
Hoarding is a complex form of OCD where a person has three main problems:
They have difficulty in discarding items.
They buy, save or collect anything and everything and are unable to throw anything away, even when
space is running out.
They have problems with organisation of items.
These problems often culminate in the hoarder living in a small area of a room, with the rest taken over by the
saved or difficult to discard items.
There is believed to be three categories of hoarding:
'Prevention of harm' hoarding Prevention of bad things happening, common to other forms of OCD,
where a person will fear that harm will occur if they throw things away. For example dustmen will be
injured by sharp edges of discarded cans or glass objects, or that someone may be contaminated from a
discarded item.
'Deprivation hoarding' Where a person feels that they may need the object later, sometimes because of
previous experience of deprivation. For example just after the Second World War many people across
Europe had nothing, and so everything became valuable and reusable.
'Emotional' Hoarding For some people hoarding becomes emotional, where perhaps, because of past
traumatic experiences with people, they believe objects hold a special emotional significance. For
example where a loved teddy bear can be trusted more than people, a person will develop relationships
with objects rather than people.
4. Ruminations
'Rumination' is a term often used . To turn a matter over and over in the mind.In the
context of OCD a rumination is actually a train of prolonged thinking about a question or theme that
is undirected and unproductive. Unlike obsessional thoughts, ruminations are not objectionable and
are indulged rather than resisted. Many ruminations dwell on religious, philosophical, or
metaphysical topics, such as the origins of the universe, life after death, the nature of morality, and
so on.
One such example might be where a person dwells on the time-consuming question: 'Is everyone
basically good?'. They would ruminate on this for a long period of time, going over in their mind
various considerations and arguments, and contemplating what superficially appeared to them to be
compelling evidence.
Another example might be someone that ruminates about what would happen to them after death.
They would weigh up the various theoretical possibilities, visualise scenes of heaven, hell, and other
worlds and try to remember what philosophers and scientists have said about death.
With most ruminations it inevitably never leads to a solution or satisfactory conclusion and the
person appears to be deeply pre-occupied, very thoughtful, and detached.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is diagnosed when the Obsessions and
Compulsions:
Consume excessive amounts of time (approximately an hour or more).
Cause significant distress and anguish.
Interfere with daily functioning at home, school, or work; or interfere with social activities/ family
life/relationships.
Treatments
The best treatment for most people with OCD should include one or more of the following:
Exposure Therapy
A properly trained therapist
Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)
Medicine



























Conclusion

In this we conclude that obsessive compulsive disorder the individual feels compelled to engage
In senseless behavior or has recurrent thoughts. It is a neurotic disorder. In conclusion, I

Hope you were able to gain new knowledge about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder its

symptoms, causes, and treatments. The symptoms being both the obsessive and the

compulsive, the causes being genetic and traumatic, and the treatments being therapy and

antidepressants. OCD is one of many mental disorders that plague everyday and it is

important for the public to be aware and understanding of those that find themselves

afflicted.
















Content
Psychological Disorders
Types Of Psychological Disorders
Neurotic Disorder
Psychoses Disorder Anxiety Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
The Different Types of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Contamination
Mental Contamination
Ruminations
Obstacles Treatments


















Reference



www.nimhnim.gov.com

www.webmd.com


www. Camh.com

www.about.com


www.ocfoondation.org

A Text book of psychology by Mrs. Sheher Bano

You might also like