Obsessive-compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Left untreated, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, can disrupt daily life and relationships. If you’re experiencing symptoms, find the care you need at Reid Health.
Finding the care you need for OCD
Obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, is a mental health condition that includes both obsessions and compulsions. People with OCD experience intrusive and persistent thoughts — the obsession — and seek to compensate for those thoughts with repetitive actions — the compulsion.
OCD affects millions of people in the United States. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 2.3% of all adults in the country develop OCD at some point in their lifetime.
OCD care at Reid Health
If you’re experiencing symptoms that might be related to OCD, you don’t simply have to live with them. Help is available, right here in our community.
Our team of behavioral health providers in East Central Indiana and West Central Ohio has specialized training in diagnosing and treating OCD. We can help you find the treatment plan that’ll work best for your specific needs, giving you the tools to cope with your diagnosis.
What is OCD?
In the past, OCD was categorized as an anxiety disorder, a type of mental health condition related to extreme anxiety and distress. As researchers have learned more about OCD, it’s been moved to its own category of mental health disorders.
OCD begins with obsessive thoughts and mental images. If you develop OCD, you might find you have unwanted thoughts that simply won’t go away.
Your mind creates rituals to remedy these intrusive thoughts. These mental acts help temporarily ease the stress caused by an obsessive thought.
Because the relief is temporary, you’ll need to repeat the ritual each time an obsessive thought occurs, creating an ongoing pattern of behavior.
Types of OCD
There are multiple subtypes of OCD, varying by the compulsion they cause. These subtypes include:
- Body dysmorphic disorder: This condition often relates to poor self-esteem or concerns about one's body image.
- Excoriation (skin-picking) disorder: This disorder involves repetitive picking of the skin, leading to noticeable damage.
- Hoarding disorder: Someone with this disorder has persistent difficulty in discarding or parting with possessions, leading to cluttered living spaces.
- Olfactory reference disorder: This disorder results in an inaccurate perception of having a bad body odor, which is not present.
- Trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder): This condition is characterized by an irresistible urge to pull out one's hair, resulting in hair loss and distress.
In addition to these OCD subtypes, it’s also possible to develop obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). This is a type of personality disorder causing a preoccupation with perfectionism and control.
You might also experience OCD along with other health issues. OCD and tic disorders, for example, can co-occur, meaning those who have OCD might also have tic disorders such as Tourette’s syndrome.
Symptoms of OCD
Because OCD involves both obsessions and compulsions, the disorder can cause many different symptoms, encompassing both intrusive thoughts and corresponding actions.
Symptoms of OCD might include:
- “Canceling” or “undoing” to counteract bad thoughts
- Counting while completing a task
- Excessive hand-washing or cleaning
- Fear of germs or contamination
- Fear of losing control
- Fear of self-harm or harming others
- Need for control, order, and symmetry
- Ordering or arranging things repeatedly
- Praying to prevent harm
- Preoccupation with illness, danger, or accidents
- Repeated actions such as tapping or checking a door lock
- Superstitious views about luck
- Telling, asking, or confessing to get reassurance
- Unwanted thoughts, mental images, or urges
OCD risk factors
- Being exposed to germs or contamination, particularly during childhood
- Dealing with perfectionism or a strong sense of responsibility
- Developing PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcus) following a strep infection
- Experiencing cultural or societal pressures related to cleanliness or orderliness
- Having a family history of OCD or anxiety disorders
- Having certain personality traits, including impulsivity or neuroticism
- Having differences in brain structure and functioning, which imaging studies have shown to relate to OCD
- Having had a brain injury
- Having other mental health conditions, including anxiety disorders or depression
- Witnessing violence or other difficult situations as a child
Diagnosing OCD
If you’re having OCD symptoms, talk to your primary care provider. They can talk through your symptoms with you and refer you to a mental health professional for a diagnosis and follow-up care.
To diagnose obsessive-compulsive disorder, a behavioral health provider will perform a thorough exam, looking for potential mental and physical causes of what you’re experiencing. Once your provider rules out underlying physical causes for your symptoms, you’ll undergo an OCD test or a similar psychiatric evaluation.
To be diagnosed with OCD, you need to be experiencing symptoms that disrupt your daily life and functioning for at least one hour each day. These symptoms must include both obsessive thoughts and corresponding compulsive actions that aren’t explained by other physical or mental health conditions.
OCD treatments at Reid Health
If you’re diagnosed with OCD, your provider can help you find a treatment plan that’s personalized for your needs. This plan will take into consideration many different factors, including the specific symptoms you’re experiencing and the severity of your condition.
We offer comprehensive treatment for OCD, which usually involves medication, psychotherapy, lifestyle changes, or a combination of the three. Your treatment plan might include:
- Lifestyle changes: These are often recommended alongside other treatment options to help reduce symptoms and improve overall quality of life by incorporating healthy habits, such as regular exercise and sufficient quality sleep.
- Medications: Certain medications can be prescribed to alleviate the obsessions and compulsions associated with OCD, often including the use of antidepressants like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
- Psychotherapy: This technique involves meeting with a mental health professional to talk through your symptoms, the situations that trigger obsessive thoughts for you, and ways to cope. We offer cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), a type of psychotherapy that helps identify unhealthy thoughts and helps talk through how to overcome them.
While OCD can’t be cured, treatment can help you reduce the effects of the disorder and improve your quality of life.