Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

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What is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition. It is a cycle of obsessions and compulsions that can directly and significantly interfere with your daily routine and emotional well-being.

Obsessions are unwanted thoughts, images that cause anxiety and stress: they are just not excessive worries, but they feel intrusive and cannot be ignored.

Compulsions, on the other hand, are repetitive mental actions that are taken to reduce stress caused by obsession.

OCD is not just something that people can stop by willpower, but it is a recognised mental condition relating to anxiety, impulse control and formation of habits.

What causes OCD?

Biological Factors: Imbalances in neurotransmitters, particularly serotonin, genetic predisposition, and differences in brain structure and function.
Psychological Factors: Perfectionistic thinking, an increased sense of responsibility, or difficulty handling uncertainty.
Environmental Factors: Stressful life events, trauma, or ongoing high-pressure situations.
Medical Conditions: Autoimmune conditions, hormonal changes, or neurological issues.
Lifestyle Factors: Chronic stress, lack of sleep, and poor self-care habits that worsen symptoms.

How does OCD affect your mind?

OCD creates anxiety and can make your mind overreact to harmless situations, thereby driving you into a cycle of compulsions, which may provide a temporary relief, but overall, it just strengthens OCD. Here’s what OCD affects your mind:

Intrusive thoughts
In OCD, unwanted yet persistent thoughts, images or urges flood the brain, giving them exaggerated importance. These thoughts, although irrational, feel threatening.
Anxiety and distress that feel unbearable:
OCD, also referred to as doubt disorder, brings in discomfort from uncertainty. This anxiety often feels so overwhelming that it results in a compulsion.
Compulsions temporarily neutralize or reduce anxiety:
People with OCD often perform compulsions such as mentally reviewing events, repeating actions, seeking reassurance, and avoiding triggers.
Exhaustion and fatigue:
OCD keeps your mind in a constant state of high alert mode, which results in mental exhaustion, irritability and brain fog.
OCD interferes with attention and perception:
Symmetry, dirt or small mistakes, which normal people may overlook; people with OCD often feel compelled to correct them. Thus, we can conclude that OCD skews attention and perception, making thoughts, sensations or risks feel magnified.

With OCD, memory can become less reliable; compulsive repetition creates confusion.

With OCD thoughts feeling like urgent, dangerous and personally meaningful, they often get stuck in the brain, and the same is interpreted as a threat that requires a quick action.

A sense of inflated responsibility leads to intense guilt and self-monitoring.

WAYS TO MANAGE OCD

Here’s an overview of what helps manage OCD:

Exposure and Response prevention (ERP):
This is the gold standard treatment that teaches your brain not to panic about intrusive thoughts. This is a highly effective treatment.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT):
CBT focuses on reversing thought patterns and behaviour.
Medication as and when required.
These can be used alone or with therapy and can reduce intrusive thoughts, lower anxiety and make ERP easier..

Apart from the above, the following can also help in managing OCD:

Reduce seeking reassurance
Delay and distract technique, which helps in building resistance and control
Reduce stress and sleep well
Build a response plan for intrusive thoughts
Create a compulsion log

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Symptoms of OCD:

OCD may look different for everyone. Here, we have tried to list some of the prevalent OCD symptoms:

Contamination OCD: Fear of germs, dirt, or illness.
Religious or moral OCD: Scrupulosity is an obsession about sin, morality or doing just the “right” thing.
Primarily obsessive OCD (Pure O): Internal compulsions like seeking reassurance or mental checking.
Symmetry OCD: This requires the things to be just “right” or “correct”
Harm OCD: Intrusive thoughts that can lead to harming oneself or others
Checking OCD: Constantly checking things like locks, appliances or personal safety.
Excessive doubt OCD: The fear of making mistakes or forgetting things.

These intrusive thoughts are ego-dystonic, but they go against the person’s values.

Compulsions (Repetitive behaviour or Mental acts)

Compulsions, which result from obsessive thoughts, are actions performed to reduce anxiety. These are often time-consuming and interfere with daily life. Common compulsions include:

Seeking reassurance repeatedly
Arranging or reordering items in a particular manner
Excessive cleaning or washing hands
Counting or repeating words
Checking behaviours
Avoiding situations that trigger obsessions

OCD often reflects in one’s emotional behaviour and physical appearance in the following ways:

Irritability or frustration
Exhaustion from constant mental effort
Feeling guilty or ashamed about thoughts or behaviours
Concentration becomes difficult

The impact is greatly visible in the person’s daily life in the given ways:

Reduced quality of life
Interference with work and relationships

These cycles of obsessions and compulsions may feel overwhelming and can be difficult to control without proper support.

When to seek help for OCD

These are the common signs indicating that it may be time to seek help

Anxiety or distress feels unmanageable:
When these emotions are constant or unbearable, it's time to seek help.
Reassurance doesn't help any longer:
Despite seeking constant reassurance from others, it doesn't really help; the anxiety seems to return, and OCD worsens.
Work, school or relationships start suffering:
When OCD starts interfering with concentration, productivity or connection, it is a sign to start seeking professional help for OCD
Avoidance starts limiting your life:
When to start avoiding social gatherings, people or places to avoid triggers, professional support becomes mandatory.

If you find yourself feeling trapped in repetitive thoughts or behaviors, or if these patterns start consuming more of your time, it’s a strong indication that seeking support could help you regain control and improve your well-being.

Seeking help to manage OCD may look like:
Learning skills to respond differently to intrusive thoughts
Talking to a mental health professional trained in OCD at psych2gether
Getting an assessment done with a qualified doctor at psych2gether
Speak to family or a close friend

OCD can be loud and convincing, but with proper support from psych2gether you may lead a meaningful and fulfilling life.

To book a consultation, visit us at 79 College Rd Harrow HA1 1BD, UK.

Treatments of OCD

The first step towards OCD treatment is recognizing it as a medical condition instead of a personal failure.
Early intervention with OCD can prevent symptoms from becoming more acute and eventually help in improving long-term outcomes.
Living with OCD can be very challenging, but with proper medical help, many experience improvement or even recover completely.
Progress may seem to be gradual, setbacks can be a barrier, but with persistent support and evidence-based therapies, a fulfilling life can be achieved with OCD.

We are listing here the ways to manage and treat OCD.

Best Evidence-based treatments for OCD:

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT):

This is considered to be the most effective psychological treatment for OCD. Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is the most successful form of CBT and is widely recognized as the gold standard treatment for OCD. Here is how it helps:

Exposure helps individuals face intrusive thoughts and life situations
Response prevention minimizes compulsive behaviours
Over time, the anxiety levels reduce to negligible levels without any rituals.

Acceptance and mindfulness-based OCD treatments:

Some newer approaches help individuals focus on acceptance rather than control. These approaches include:

ACT (Acceptance and commitment therapy): This approach teaches individuals to accept intrusive thoughts without getting involved in compulsions.
Mindfulness-based therapy: This helps reduce emotional reactivity to thoughts related to OCD.

These approaches prove to be powerful companions of ERP therapy.

Professional treatment is essential, but some lifestyle changes can also support recovery from OCD.

Some of the common lifestyle changes may include:

Maintaining a proper sleep schedule
Reducing reassurance-seeking behaviour
Stress management from the workout and relaxation
Educating the family members and others about OCD

Medications to help manage OCD

We at psych2gether recommend proper medications for moderate to severe OCD, when the symptoms start to impact daily life significantly.

Here’s a list of commonly used medications for OCD:

Sertraline (zoloft)
Fluoxetine (Prozac)
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
Fluvoxamine (Luvox)

SSRIs doses are required at a higher intensity in OCD than in depression. These medications show better results when combined with proper therapy.

Final Word

OCD can often feel overwhelming, but effective OCD treatment options are available. If you or a loved one is seeking help for OCD you may reach out to us on psych2getherWe are located at 79 College Rd Harrow HA1 1BD, UK.