re ocd in article c r n fg news hawaii edu sharynk hawaii edu writes i recently heard of a mental disorder called obsessive compulsive disorder what is it what causes it could it be caused by a nervous breakdown obesssive compulsive disorder not to be confused with obsessive compulsive personality disorder is an acute anxiety disorder characterized by either obsessions persistent intrusive thoughts that cause anxiety when not entertained or compulsions repetitive ritualistic actions that similarly cause intense psychological discomfort when resisted ocd is often associated with certain forms of depression examples of obsessive thoughts are repeated impulses to kill a loved one though not accompanied by anger or a religious person having recurrent blasphemous thoughts generally the individual attempts to ignore or suppress the intrusive thoughts by engaging in other activities the individual realizes that the thoughts originate from the own mind rather than being from an external source examples of compulsive actions are constant repetitive hand washing or other activity that is not realistically related to alleviating a source of the anxiety in ocd the obsessions or compulsions are highly distressing to the individual take an hour or more per day and significantly impair their daily routine and social relationships treatments include psychotherapy behavioral methods and sometimes certain anti depressants which have recently been found effective in alleviating obsessions and compulsions the standard diagnostic code for ocd if you want to look it up in the dsm iii manual of psychiatric diagnosis is 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
