Guest Author - Lisa Angelettie M.S.W.

In the movie blockbuster, The Aviator we watched the main character Howard Hughes suffer from an agonizing illness -Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). It ruined the quality of his life, but fortunately for the 1 in 50 people in America who suffer from OCD there are very effective treatments out there.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a brain disorder that causes problems with information processing. It causes people to worry and/or perform compulsive or repetitive behaviors which last at least an hour a day and become a disruption in one or all areas of the the person's life.

OCD often appears in people by the age of 40, and more than half of adults with the disorder say that they had symptoms since childhood. Unfortunately, the disorder is often under-diagnosed or misdiagnosed which is why many children with the disorder don't receive proper treatment until they are adults.

Obsessions
A person exhibiting an obsessive behavior may worry excessively about a particular thing over and over again, such as whether or not they turned the stove off, if something is dirty or contaminated, etc. These worries or fears are often not realistic and the people that have them do not like it--they make them feel uncomfortable and frightened.

Compulsions
A person exhibiting a compulsive behavior will often perform compulsive acts like washing their hands until raw or physically checking to see if the stove was turned off, in order to make their obsessive thoughts go away. These rituals are usually performed according to specific rules - such as counting certain objects over and over and in a certain order. Like obsessive thoughts - compulsions do not make the person happy. They are only a means to an end - to help rid them of the discomfort of their obsessive thoughts.


The intensity of the OCD ranges from person to person. It can cause some people a lot of distress in their lives and for some it's just this annoying thing.

Treatment
There is no definitive answer on the cause of OCD, but research suggests that it is due to a communication problem in the brain due to insufficient levels of serotonin in the brain. That may be why some sufferers feel relief when they take medications that increase serotonin levels - such as SRI medications (antidepressants), in addition to cognitive behavioral psychotherapy (CBT).

Additional Resource...
The OCD Workbook: Your Guide to Breaking Free from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
by Bruce M. Hyman Ph.D., Cherry Pedrick R.N.