Transcript Slide 1
Review
•Diagnostic Criteria
•Associated Features and
Disorders
•Frequency, Prevalence, and
Course
•Treatment
Pop Culture Analysis
•Slang
•Famous Cases
•Movies
•TV
•Persistent ideas, thoughts, impulses or images that are
experienced as intrusive and inappropriate and that
cause marked anxiety or distress
•Ego-dystonic—individual’s sense that the content of the
obsession is alien, not within his or her control, and not
the kind of thought he or she would expect to have
•Unlikely to be related to a real-life problem
•Attempt made to ignore, suppress, or neutralize
obsessive thoughts or impulses with some other thought
or action
Most Common Obsessions
1. Thoughts about contamination
2. Repeated doubts
3. A need to have things in a particular order
4. Aggressive or horrific impulses
5. Sexual imagery
•Repetitive behaviors or mental acts, the goal of which is
to prevent or reduce anxiety or distress, not to provide
pleasure or gratification
•Drive to perform compulsions to reduce distress that
accompanies an obsession or to prevent some dreaded
event or situation
•Rigid or stereotyped acts performed according to
idiosyncratically elaborated rules without being able to
indicate their purpose
•Clearly excessive or are not connected in a realistic way
with what they are designed to neutralize or prevent
Most Common Compulsions
1. Washing and cleaning
2. Counting
3. Checking
4. Requesting or demanding assurances
5. Repeating actions
6. Ordering
Criterion A : Recurrent obsessions or compulsions
Criterion B : At some point during the course of the
disorder, the person recognizes that the obsessions or
compulsions are excessive or unreasonable
•This criterion does not apply to children
•In adults there is a broad range of insight into the reasonableness of
the obsessions or compulsions
•An individual’s insight into the disorder may vary across times and
situations
•Specifier: With Poor Insight—for most of the time during the current
episode, the individual does not recognize that the obsessions or
compulsions are excessive or unreasonable
Criterion C : Obsessions or compulsions are severe
enough to be time consuming (take more than one hour
per day) or cause marked distress or impairment
•Significantly interfere with normal routine, occupational functioning,
usual social activities, or relationships with others
Criterion D : If another Axis I disorder is present, the
content of the obsessions or compulsions is not
restricted to it
Criterion E : The disturbance is not due to the direct
physiological effects of a substance or general medical
condition
•Avoidance: attempts to avoid
•Excessive use of substances:
objects or situations that provoke
obsessions or compulsions can be
extensive and severely restrict
general functioning
•Tourette’s Disorder: incidence
•Hypochondriachal concerns:
repeated visits to physicians to seek
reassurance
•Sleep disturbances
•Guilt: pathological sense of
responsiblity
alcohol or sedative, hypnotic, or
anxiolytic medications
rate ranging from 35% to 90%
•Tics:between 20% and 30% of
individuals with OCD report current
or past tics
•Dermatological problems:
caused by excessive washing with
water or cleaning agents
In Adults
In Children
•Major Depressive Disorder
•Learning Disorders
•Specific Phobia
•Disruptive Behavior Disorders
•Social Phobia
•Group A Beta-hemolytic
Streptococcal Infection (scarlet
fever and strep throat):
characterized by prepubertal onset,
associated neurological
abnormalities, abrupt onset of
symptoms, episodic course in which
exacerbations are temporally
related to the streptococcal
infections
•Panic Disorder
•Generalized Anxiety Disorder
•Eating Disorders
•Obsessive-Compulsive Personality
Disorder
•Dependent Personality Disorder
•Avoidant Personality Disorder
Frequency and Prevalence
•Adults: equally common in males and females
Life-time prevalence: 2.5%
1-year prevalence: 0.5% - 2.1%
•Children: more common in males than females
Life-time prevalence: 1% - 2.3%
1-year prevalence: 0.7%
Course
•Modal age of onset
Males: between ages 6 and 15
Females: between ages 20 and 29
•Onset is usually gradual, but cases of acute onset exist
•Majority of individuals have waxing and waning course
•15% show progressive deterioration in occupational
and social functioning
•5% have an episodic course with minimal or no
symptoms between episodes
•Medication: SSRIs—Fluoxetine (Prozac)
TACs—Clomipramine (Anafril)
•Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
•Exposure Therapy
Touch or come close to a “contaminated” object
Think dreaded thoughts deliberately for a set amount of time
Resist ritualizing and accept the accompanying feelings of
anxiety and discomfort
•Support Groups
1. Professionally Assisted
Organized and run by a mental health professional
Group therapy; an extension of individual therapy
Held in the therapists office; group members pay a fee
2. Mutual Support
Run by individual(s) who are recovered OCD sufferers
Discuss medication, symptoms, cognitive behavioral therapy
Informational, not therapeutic
Mental health professionals may be guest speakers
Usually held in a public facility without a fee
•Support Groups
3. Twelve Step Program
Run by members of Obsessive Compulsives Anonymous (OCA)
Same format as the original 12-step program
Alcoholics Anonymous
Network of groups throughout the United States
4. G.O.A.L. (Giving Obsessive Compulsives Another
Lifestyle) Groups
Founded in 1981 by a psychologist and OCD sufferer
Prevent relapse with exposure and response prevention
therapy in a group setting
Members run the group, but a professional therapist is present
•Support Groups
5. Online Support
Offer free and immediate support from other OCD sufferers,
information about treatment and ways to cope, advice
from medical professionals
Information and advice for family members of OCD sufferers
•Basic Strategy for Recovery
1. Learn to stop using rituals
2. Learn to face anxiety without them
Slang
•Used as an adjective to describe a person’s perfectionist
tendencies
•Diminishes the severity of the disorder
•Represents a lack of understanding of the disorder
Famous Cases
•Marc Summers
- American TV personality,
producer
- Best known for hosting Double
Dare on Nickelodeon
- Currently hosts Unwrapped
and Ultimate Recipe Showdown on
The Food Network
Famous Cases
•Howard Hughes
- American aviator, engineer, industrialist, film
producer/director
- Set multiple air speed records
- Produced Hell’s Angels, Scarface, The Outlaw
- Owned and expanded Trans World Airlines
The Aviator (2005)
Character with OCD: Howard Hughes
Signs and symptoms:
•Rituals related to food
•Fear of contamination
•Excessive hand washing
•Tics
•Verbal repetition
•Need to have things in a particular order
**Says he sees things that are not there and feels like he is
losing his mind**
**Paranoia**
Treatment: no measures taken to treat the disorder
As Good As It Gets (1997)
Character with OCD: Melvin Udall
Signs and symptoms:
•Fear of contamination
•Checking
•Repeated actions
•Irrational rituals
**Homophobia**
**Racism**
**Misogyny**
Treatment: medication and counseling from a psychiatrist
MTV True Life: I Have
Obsessive-Compulsive
Disorder (1998)
•Morgan: Performs rituals to please God and keep her mother alive
Therapy: Pretends to attend her mother’s funeral
•Ryan: Fear of contamination, checking, tic (“huffing”)
Therapy: Does not seek treatment
•Jessica: Counting, irrational rituals, need to have things in a
particular order
Therapy: Made to resist ritualizing
Monk (2002)
Character with OCD:
Adrian Monk
Signs and symptoms:
Treatment:
•Fear of contamination
•Counting, ordering
•Washing and cleaning
•Generalized Anxiety Disorder
•38 Phobias
•Avoidance
•Dependent Personality Disorder
•Weekly visits to his
therapist, Dr. Kroger
•Uses medication in a few
episodes
Consider the implications if the average person’s
understanding of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is
based solely on representations in the media.
•Does the media accurately represent OCD?
•Does the use of OCD in slang strengthen or weaken the
stigma surrounding psychological disorders?
•How do comedies and dramas about OCD sufferers influence
the general public’s perception of disorder?
•How are aspects of the disorder exaggerated or diminished
for the sake of Hollywood or “good TV?”