up in their own mind. Compulsions are the mental acts or repetitive behaviors that the individual feels they must do to quell the thoughts related to an obsession. The behaviors or mental acts tend to reduce the patient’s stress and will decrease the tendency to carry out the obsession. They may or may not be directly related to the obsession, as in compulsive washing in order to stave off contamination. The symptoms seen in OCD cannot be explained by another mental illness, substance use, or a medical condition. The first medical line of treatment involves SSRI therapy, which reduces obsessions and associated anxiety. Cognitive-behavioral therapy can be used, which consists of exposure and response prevention methods. Psycho-education and relaxation training (PRT) is used to treat children with the disorder. Behavior therapy and family-based therapy will decrease OCD in children; however, individual CBT does not seem to be helpful in these kids. Family members often feel confused and angry about these symptoms, especially in kids, so parent management therapy along with CBT will reduce the symptomatology better than CBT alone. Deep brain stimulation will improve some aspects of the disorder. Without treatment, the patient can have a severely affected quality of life in many life areas. The compulsions are often time-consuming and will impact the level of functioning. Severely affected patients will spend hours a day doing their rituals and will be perceived as eccentric or odd. The patient will be reluctant to get treatment as they feel their behavior is shameful or embarrassing. Family members suffer, which is why family-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (FCBT) will usually be more beneficial than individual CBT.
BODY DYSMORPHIC DISORDER (300.7) This is also referred to as BDD. It is a DSM-V diagnoses that involves having anxiety or distress due to a perceived physical anomaly, such as a scar, a certain physical feature, or the shape/size of a body part. While most individuals will have a degree of dissatisfaction with their appearance at times, people with BDD will have ongoing and intrusive thoughts about their
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