Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an Anxiety Disorder affecting many people with recurring and unwanted thoughts, ideas, sensations or obsessions. These make them feel driven to perform repeated compulsive acts. Behaviors such as repetitive hand-washing, checking for locked doors and windows, or constantly checking for messages on smartphones are justContinue Reading
People who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are preoccupied with certain distressing thoughts, and feel compelled to perform certain extreme behaviors. People become obsessed with images or thoughts that force their way into a person’s awareness against a person’s will. These thoughts are so disturbing that they cause intenseContinue Reading
The term Repetition Compulsion was first coined by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the father of psychotherapy. The term is defined as a physical addiction to drama, stress, unhealthy situations or the re-enactment of victimization. In an updated 1989 summary, Dr. Bessel A. VanDerKock wrote an excellent study in his “The CompulsionContinue Reading
Habits are learned behaviors, or behavior patterns unlike instincts and motivations, that are embedded genetic traits. Habits are acquired by frequent use and repetition, as in an addiction or in swearing, for example that make up the structure of one’s personality. Primal vs Inherited Habits are dictated by these fourContinue Reading
We all develop habits, good and bad, throughout our lives. Frequent repetition of the same thinking and behavior patterns is how habits are formed. Practicing faulty thinking and behavior over long periods becomes engrained and is part of our second-nature. So, if that is true, the same frequent repetition canContinue Reading
Antidepressant drugs that are used to treat Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) help to reduce obsessions and compulsions. (Fineberg & Craig, 2010; Simpson, 2010) These drugs increase brain serotonin activity but they also help produce more normal brain activity. Studies have shown these antidepressant drugs help improve symptoms for between fifty andContinue Reading
Excoriation, also classified as an Obsessive-Compulsive Related Disorder, is a disorder in which a person repeatedly picks at their skin, causing signficant sores or open wounds to appear. (APA 2013) Most people who pick at their skin do so by centering on a specific area, usually the arms, legs, scalp,Continue Reading
The disorder of Hair-Pulling has become classified as an Obsessive-Compulsive Related Disorder. Individuals with hair-pulling disorder (also known as trichotillomania, derived from the Greek term for frenzied hair-pulling), repeatedly pull hair out from their scalp, eyebrows, eyelashes or other parts of their bodies. (APA, 2013, 2012). Typically, people with thisContinue Reading
Recently, the need to save and accumulate items, known as hoarding, has been added to the American Psychiatric Association’s classification system: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). People diagnosed with hoarding disorder persistently feel they must save items and experience great distress if they attemptContinue Reading
In the addict’s world there is ongoing tension between a person’s normal self and the addicted self. A Jekyll-and-Hyde struggle emerges. The addictive system is so compelling that the addict feels it would be deadly to stop it. Yet, as the system continues, the person’s values, priorities and loved onesContinue Reading