The vast majority of people who thought that they were possessed by the devil did not have hallucinations or other "spectacular symptoms" but "complained of anxiety, religious fears, and evil thoughts. ": 213  In 1584, a woman from Kent, England, named Mrs. Davie, described by a justice of the peace as "a good wife", was nearly burned at the stake after she confessed that she experienced constant, unwanted urges to murder her family. : 213 The English term obsessive–compulsive arose as a translation of German Zwangsvorstellung (obsession) used in the first conceptions of OCD by Carl Westphal. Westphals description went on to influence Pierre Janet, who further documented features of OCD. In the early 1910s, Sigmund Freud attributed obsessive–compulsive behavior to unconscious conflicts that manifest as symptoms. Freud describes the clinical history of a typical case of "touching phobia" as starting in early childhood, when the person has a strong desire to touch an item. In response, the person develops an "external prohibition" against this type of touching. However, this "prohibition does not succeed in abolishing" the desire to touch; all it can do is repress the desire and "force it into the unconscious." Freudian psychoanalysis remained the dominant treatment for OCD until the mid-1980s, even though medicinal and therapeutic treatments were known and available, because it was widely thought that these treatments would be detrimental to the effectiveness of the psychotherapy. : 210–211  In the mid-1980s, this approach changed, and practitioners began treating OCD primarily with medicine and practical therapy rather than through psychoanalysis.
Some of these include fear of germs, hurting loved ones, embarrassment, neatness, societally unacceptable sexual thoughts etc..Within OCD, these specific categories are often diagnosed into their own type of OCD.OCD is sometimes placed in a group of disorders called the obsessive–compulsive spectrum.Another criteria in the DSM is that a persons mental illness does not fit one of the other categories of a mental disorder better. That is to say, if the obsessions and compulsions of a patient could be better described by trichotillomania, it would not be diagnosed as OCD. That being said, OCD does often go hand in hand with other mental disorders. For this reason, one may be diagnosed with multiple mental disorders at once or even multiple types of OCD at once.A different aspect of the diagnoses is the degree of insight had by the individual in regards to the truth of the obsessions. There are three levels, good/fair, poor or absent/delusional. Good/fair indicated that the patient is aware that the obsessions they have are not true or probably not true. Poor indicates that the patient believes their obsessional beliefs are probably true. Absent/delusional indicates that they fully believe their obsessional thoughts to be true. Approximately 4% or fewer individuals with OCD will be diagnosed as absent/delusional. Additionally, as many as 30% of those with OCD also have a lifetime tic disorder, meaning they have been diagnosed with a tic disorder at some point in their life.There are several different types of tics that have been observed in individuals with OCD.