Many people engage in unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with obsessive thoughts, such as withdrawing from friends and family members, compulsive behaviors, and aggression. Obsessions are also typically accompanied by high stress and intense anxiety. When intrusive thoughts enter your mind, you’ll likely experience some level of discomfort, followed by attempts to avoid unwanted thoughts. Obsessive thoughts can have a significant and highly negative impact on your overall mood and day-to-day functioning. However, obsessive thoughts are far more persistent than day-to-day mental clutter. The answer is probably both – underlying genetic and other biological factors probably set the stage and determine why one person is at more risk than another for developing OCD, but life experiences may then contribute to who develops the disorder and who does not, and to what form their symptoms take.Everyone experiences distressing or unwanted thoughts from time to time. It is not clear whether one comes ‘first’ – whether there is a core brain abnormality, perhaps based in the genes, that leads to the symptoms, or whether a pattern of obsessional and compulsive behavior develops and is reflected in brain function. The relationship between brain abnormalities and psychological symptoms is one of the great mysteries of psychiatry. Specialized psychotherapy is as effective as medication in many cases – perhaps more effective in some. Treatments that improve symptoms generally also improve these brain abnormalities.īut OCD is, at the same time, a psychological condition, influenced by life experience. OCD is associated with particular abnormalities in the brain – in particular, hyperactivity in a set of brain regions known as the basal ganglia, the anterior thalamus, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the orbitofrontal cortex. The distressing and time-consuming cycle of obsessions and compulsions can interfere significantly with patients’ functioning and quality of life. Unfortunately, performing compulsions can actually strengthen the obsessive-compulsive cycle. While this may temporarily succeed, the relief is often brief, and other obsessions arise, which prompt further compulsive behavior. Compulsions are typically efforts to control the anxiety caused by obsessions – for example, repeated washing may be a response to obsessions about germs or contamination. Obsessions and compulsions can occur independently of one another, but they usually occur together, and they are usually related. Common compulsions include repetitive washing, checking rituals, praying, superstitious rituals, mental rituals such as counting or reciting, seeking reassurance, and repetitive touching or tapping. They are sometimes performed in very precise, almost ritualized ways. Common types of obsessions include concerns about contamination or symmetry, fears that harm will come to oneself or others, and unwanted or inappropriate violent, sexual, or blasphemous thoughts, impulses, or images.Ĭompulsions are repetitive behaviors or mental acts that are performed in an effort to control anxiety or distress or to prevent a dreaded event or situation. Obsessions can vary broadly, but they often fall into particular categories. Obsessions typically involve significant anxiety or distress, which leads sufferers to try to suppress, avoid, or neutralize them. Indeed, the word ‘obsession’ comes from a Latin root meaning ‘to besiege’ or ‘to occupy’, which captures this unwanted, intrusive character. Obsessions are usually experienced as being intrusive or inappropriate patients often describe them as being different from normal thoughts. Obsessions are recurrent and persistent thoughts, images, or impulses.
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