Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Mental illness essay topics
Mental illness essay topics
Mental illness essay topics
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Mental illness essay topics
A man lies down and begins to try and fall asleep but suddenly remembers that he cannot remember if he locked the doors to his house. He cannot fall asleep until he knows for sure all the doors are locked, so he proceeds to get up and check if every door is locked. He does this three times until he is finally comfortable enough to go to sleep. What could possibly be wrong with this man? This man most like has a disability called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. In the past, this man with OCD would have been considered extremely strange, but it is now known that OCD is somewhat common in today’s world. The conditions of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder can be very uncomfortable and unsettling, but there are some ways to treat OCD.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder that causes a sufferer to have very uncomfortable obsessions and compulsions. The main anxiety of a sufferer of OCD is obsessive thoughts, images, or impulses that can cause a lot of distress. These thoughts, images, and ideas are obsessive because they are undesirable and the person will experience them continuously. People with OCD usually recognize that their obsessions are abnormal, but it is still extremely difficult for them to just stop them. As a result of these obsessions, a person with OCD will usually experience compulsions to try and relieve themselves of their obsessions. Unfortunately for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, the compulsions only relieve stress caused by the obsessions briefly. The obsessions typically come back later on and the cycle of obsessions and compulsions can continue on throughout the day. Obsessions can continue on from anywhere between ten and twenty-five times per day, and for someone with severe ...
... middle of paper ...
...e down over the course of about a year. I still have very little OCD like symptoms, but they are almost completely gone. Anyone can tell that obsessive-compulsive disorder can be very annoying and unsettling, but, luckily, there are ways to treat OCD.
There are a few different ways to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder. First of all, medications are a good way to treat OCD. One medication that can be used to treat OCD is antidepressants.
Works Cited
Charles, Katie. "Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a leading cause of disability worldwide, with causes not yet fully understood." New York Daily News [New York] 21 July 2013: 2. Print.
Goodman, Wayne. "Obssessive-Compulsive Disorder Symptoms and Treatment."Psych Central. N.p., 20 Aug. 2013. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
Belkin, Lisa. “Can You Catch Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?” New York Times [New York] 22 May 2005:7. Print.
Obsessive-Compulsive disorder (OCD) - is characterized by persistent, uncontrollable and unwanted feelings or thoughts (obsessions) and routines or rituals (compulsions) in which individuals engage to try to prevent or rid themselves of these thoughts. In example of common compulsions include washing hands or cleaning repeatedly for fear of germs.
Anxiety and Depression Association of America (2010-2016). Obsessive Compulsive Foundation OCD Support. Retrieved on August 20, 2016, from https://www.adaa.org/search/node?keys=obsessive+compulsive
Web. The Web. The Web. 16 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
Conceição do Rosario-Campos, M., Leckman, J. F., Mercadante, M. T., Shavitt, R. G., Prado, H. S., Sada, P., Zamignani, D. & Miguel, E. C. (2001). Adults with early-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 158, 1899-1903.
Web. The Web. The Web. 23 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
Web. The Web. The Web. 19 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
Web. The Web. The Web. 23 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
Web. The Web. The Web. 20 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
Web. The Web. The Web. 2 Apr. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a disease that afflicts up to six million Americans, however all its characteristics are yet to be fully understood. Its causes, triggers, attributes, and variations are still unknown although effective medicines exist to treat the symptoms. OCD is a very peculiar disease as Rapoport discusses it comes in many different forms and have different symptoms yet have many similarities. One sure aspect is that it appears, or at least its symptoms do, out of the blue and is triggered either by stressful experiences or, most of the time, just appears out of nowhere. One example is a boy who's father was hard on him for being affected by the worlds "modern ways", the boy at a high school party tries LSD ( a hallucinatory drug), after that thoughts of whether his mind was dangerously affected by the drug. What seemed like completely appropriate worrying and anxiety turned into attacks of anxiety, he couldn't shake the thoughts that something was wrong with his mind. Essentially he had "his mind on his mind" constantly and that haunted his days his thought were as follows: " did the lsd do anything to my mind? The thought never went away ; instead it got more and more complicated. There must be something wrong with my mind if i am spending so much time worrying about it. Is there something wrong with my mind? Was this from the lsd? Will it ever get better?" (The boy who, J. L. Rapoport 125,126) Dr. Rapoport promptly put him on Anafranil (an anti-depressant, used for OCD, not marketed in the U.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a disorder which causes people to develop an anxiety when certain obsessions or compulsions are not fulfilled. OCD can affect both children and adults with more than half of all adults with OCD stating that they experienced signs as a child. People living with OCD display many obvious signs such as opening and closing a door fifty times because they have to do it “just right”. Others exhibit extreme cleanliness and will wash their hands or take showers as often as they can because they constantly feel dirty. OCD devastates people’s social lives as they are fixated and obsessed with perfection that can take forever to achieve. However people living with OCD are often found to have an above average intelligence and typically excel at school due to their detail oriented mindset, cautious planning and patience. OCD can be caused by many different factors such as genetics or the ever changing world a...
Obsessive compulsive disorder can be associated with other mental disorders that cause stress and anxiety, but it can be treated with cognitive behavioral therapy and medication. Obsessive compulsive disorder is a psychological disorder with symptoms of obsessive thoughts and compulsive actions, such as cleaning, checking, and counting. OCD is linked to other disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and experiential avoidance disorder (EA). OCD and ADHD have similar effects in children, being that they both lead to procrastination when trying to complete simple tasks. People with OCD and EA both have consistent negative thoughts, but the same treatments can be used for both.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a type of anxiety disorder that can be best characterized by the recurrent or disturbing thoughts that are labeled as obsessions. Sometime these obsessions can take on the form of intrusive images or the unwanted impulses. The compulsions can come from the repetitive or ritualized behaviors that a person feels driven to perform on a daily basis. The majority of people with the diagnosis of OCD can have both obsessions and compulsions, but most of the times about 20% have obsessions alone while 10% may have the compulsions alone (Goodman M.D., 2013) . Common types that have been illustrated in individual’s diagnoses with OCD can be characterized with concerns of contamination, safety or harm to themselves, unwanted acts of aggression, the unacceptable sexual or religious thoughts, and the need for symmetry or exactness. While some of the most common compulsion can be characterized as excessive cleaning, checking, ordering, and arranging rituals or the counting and repeating routines activities that are done sometimes on a daily basis multiple times in a day.
There are several things that are included in OCD, including its symptoms, treatments and its involvement with the brain. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder recognize their symptoms to be ego-dystonic which are thoughts one would not usually have and not within one’s control but is still a product of one’s mind. The two common symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder are obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions take the form of persistent and uncontrollable thoughts, images, impulses, worries, fears or doubts. An anonymous writer wrote about his/her images, “These images included hitting, stabbing, poisoning and shooting people, even the people I loved the most…” However, compulsions are either repetitive physical behaviors or mental thought rituals that are performed over and over again to help relieve a person’s anxiety. Over time compulsions can become more elaborate and time- consuming. Shirley Brinkerhoff mentions in her book Amanda, a high school girl facing OCD, said, “Then I started having to count my steps. Like, 387 steps to the bus stop, and if missed...
Obsessive-compulsive disorder has been classified as a type of anxiety disorder under DSM-5, in which there is a presence of obsessions, compulsions or both. Obsessions are defined as “intrusive and mostly nonsensical thoughts, images, or urges that the individual tries to resist or eliminate,” while compulsion are the thought or actions that accompany these obsessions to try to suppress and provide relief. (TEXTBOOK) The obsessions are categorized into four major types, and each is linked with a certain pattern of compulsive behaviors.