OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER A GUIDE FOR PATIENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES

Table of Contents

1. OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER A GUIDE FOR PATIENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES
2. WHAT IS OCD?
   1. Examples of OCD
   2. What happens In OCD?
   3. How does someone develop OCD
   4. Why do the problems continue and get worse?
   5. Making sense of OCD
3. THE TREATMENT OF OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER
   1. Treatment
   2. Assessing the problems
   3. What happens In treatment
   4. Some Important points about treatment
   5. How can you get the best out of treatment?
4. ADVICE FOR FAMILY AND FRIENDS
   1. Advice
   2. How can you maintain improvement?

Treatment

Actual rituals, mental rituals and reassurance are all similar in one important way. They are all ways in which people with OCD try to reduce the discomfort arising from their worries. We therefore say that they are all ways of 'neutralising' the person's worries. As we explained earlier. The problem is that though neutralising may work in the short term, it makes things worse in the long term. The task in treatment is to find ways to learn that the fears are groundless and can be coped with without rituals.