Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder which affects 2 percent of the population. All people have OCD in some form, but there is a fine line between a severe case of this disorder and simply having obsessive tendencies, said David Bush, USU counselor.
Obsessive compulsions are considered disorderly when the patterns get in the way of everyday life. Celebrities like David Beckham, Howard Hughes and Billy Bob Thorton suffer from OCD and cope with their obsessions through meditation and counseling.
Breanne Anderson, freshman majoring in social work, said she had a peer in high school who shared severe OCD with his father. She said it is uncertain whether or not the son’s tendencies started simply because he was adapting to his father’s disorder or if he really had obsessive tendencies all his own. Either way, Anderson said their obsessive patterns were tampering with their time and energy. She said when she went to her friend’s house, they wouldn’t let anyone help wash the dishes because they didn’t feel comfortable with others doing a mediocre scrubbing job on a plate they would eat off the next day. Anderson said that this was only the beginning. This father and son alphabetized books and everything in the pantry. She said the son was very meticulous about his pencils and about his haircut schedule.
“He had to get his hair cut on the same date every month. If he gets it cut on the 21st it has to be cut on the 21st of the next month or he freaks out. He would usually wait until the next month,” Anderson said.
Some students like Melissa Allen, a sophomore majoring in nutrition and food sciences, experience OCD in their own family. Her brother has displayed severe tendencies and was diagnosed by her father, who is a pediatrician.
“He has a severe hand-washing tendency,” Allen said. “He’ll wash them to a point that his knuckles actually crack and bleed sometimes.”
It is common for those who suffer from OCD to use their tendencies to keep themselves clean and safe. Bush, who works in the Counseling Center in the Taggart Student Center, said he has had the opportunity to work with many patients who suffer from OCD. Bush said the rituals performed by those who suffer from this disorder are designed by the possessor to counteract uncomfortable thoughts. The purpose of counteracting these thoughts is to gain control and alleviate discomfort, he said. He said humans adopt to the fact that pain is undesirable and therefore run away from it rather than accepting the feelings.
Bush said there is an obvious gap between severe and mild obsessive behaviors. Obsessive tendencies are known to every person and include stepping over cracks and wondering, “Am I sure I just locked the front door?” Any one of these actions become dysfunctional when thoughts are taken to the extreme, he said.
The extreme thinking wards off guilty and shameful thoughts which ultimately leads a pattern of this elaborate thought process, he said. Bush said when someone with OCD acts on an impulse to lock the door ten times and they are not harmed that night, the obsessive behavior appears to have worked. Therefore, every night following, this same ritual will be done. These types of things become a disorder when they begin to interfere, he said.
“My former client worried so much about being honest with his employer, it took him 30 minutes to fill out his time card every day,” Bush said.
He said his purpose as a counselor is to disrupt patterns like this. First, one must understand the intrusive thought to defeat it. This can be done through relaxation training, Bush said. Counseling is usually paired with medication which will most likely be a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, he said. According to “Abnormal Psychology” by Gerald Davison and John Neale, a surgery, called a cingulatomy, can be done in dire cases. In this surgury, two to three centimeters of white matter in the cingulum, an area near the corpus collosum, are destroyed. However, this procedure only helps five out of 18 patients, it stated.
Bush said another client he worked with did things that many people did not understand. He kept 150 paperclips in his pocket at all times and wore protective cloth belts around his waist.
“It is important to understand the underlying issues in each OCD case. This case happened to be a result of child abuse, so he did these things to keep himself safe,” Bush said.
–catherine.meidell@aggiemail.usu.edu