re ocd this is to followup my previous reply on this topic which it has been pointed out to me might have been dangerously misleading in two spots i stated that psychotherapy meaning talking therapy and so on was used to treat obsessive compulsive disorder which though sometimes true is misleading it is not often found effective particularly by itself primary treatment today usually consists at least in part of drug therapy the most current theories of this condition attribute it to more to biological causes than psychological in places where this distinction becomes important i mentioned that the dsm iiir mentions impulses as a possible diagnostic marker however this might look like something people associate with psychotic conditions uncontrollable or unpredictable behaviors which is not the case with ocd one of the diagnostic criteria of ocd is that the individual can and does suppress some of their impulses although they are an unending source of anxiety the obsessive thoughts and ritualistic actions usually associated with ocd are most frequently very mundane and predictable closer to a superstitious nature than a dangerous nature for the most part some references one non technical and several technical that someone was kind enough to supply for me but was unable to post themself the boy who couldn t stop washing by judith rapaport technical refs pharmacotherapy of o c disorder donna m jermain and lynn crismon pharmacotherapy epidemiology of ocd seteven a rasmussen and jane eisen j clin psychiatry suppl the waking nightmare an overview of ocd judith l rapoport j clin psychiatry suppl absence of placebo response in ocd matig r mavissakalian bruce jones stephen olson j nerv ment disease vol no and thanks very much to those who supplied constructive criticism to my first post on ocd i hope this helps clarify the parts that were misleading kind regards todd todd i stark stark dwovax enet dec com digital equipment corporation philadelphia pa usa a word is the skin of a living thought olliver wendell holmes jr
