Do You Have An Undiagnosed Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)?
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders (OCD)
What is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?
Obsessive-compulsive disorders or OCDs in short consists of the following two components:
- Obsessions: Repetitive and unwanted thoughts or sensations eg: thoughts of harming others, undue awareness of one’s own heartbeat, breathing, and other normal bodily sensations.
- Compulsions: the uncontrollable urge to do something over and over again eg: repeatedly counting objects such as coins, biting nails continuously.
DSM-5 criteria for diagnosis
The Fifth Edition of The Diagnostic and Statistics Manual has defined OCD as persons having either obsessions, or compulsions, or both. Individuals must satisfy all the criteria to be diagnosed with the disorder.
A. Presence of Obsessions, Compulsions or Both
1. Obsessions are defined as:
• Recurrent thoughts, urges, and impulses that are intruding with the person’s day to day work and causing significant anxiety.
• There is an attempt on the part of the individual to suppress these thoughts/urges or to neutralize them using an alternate defence mechanism (a compulsive act).
2. Compulsions are defined as:
• Repeated thoughts or acts that the individual has an uncontrollable urge to act upon which can be due to the response to an obsessive thought or a preconceived set of rules.
• These actions are aimed at reducing the anxiety and stress produced by obsessive thoughts or due to the irrational notion that not acting upon the same would lead to an ill effect. However, the act in question is excessive and unrealistic in proportion to the situation.
B. The obsessions and compulsions have to take up more than an hour daily or cause significant distress in day-to-day activities and hinder the normal living of the individual.
C. The symptoms are not explained by the consumption of any other prescribed or unprescribed substance use.
D. No alternate explanation exists for the exhibited set of behaviors.
