Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Treatment – How effective is it really?

 

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Obsessive compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterised by intrusive thoughts and compulsions or rituals that the person does to rid themselves of the intrusive thoughts. Everybody experiences intrusive thoughts, but people with OCD struggle to detach themselves from the intrusive thoughts and can become increasingly anxious. It is thought that around 1 in 40 people in the United States have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Half of these people find their lives are significantly impaired by the disorder. To those suffering with it, it might be hard to imagine that obsessive compulsive disorder treatment does exist.

 Myths about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

You may have heard people say that they are, “so OCD,”, in relation to how tidy or neat they are. This is a common misconception about obsessive compulsive disorder, or rather, it is commonly not realised that OCD is the abbreviation for obsessive compulsive disorder. A lot of people treat the term ‘OCD’ as if it is an adjective, when this is not the case. People who have OCD are not always neat and tidy. OCD can relate to superstitious beliefs, a fear of harming others, unpleasant sexual thoughts, and many more things.

 How can you help someone who has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?

Although obsessive compulsive disorder can be very severe, it is possible to treat. Obsessive compulsive disorder treatment is specialist, but usually extremely effective if that person is ready to go through treatment. Having said this, people with OCD have a tendency towards obsession. This means that although treatment may help them to improve, they will need to be vigilant if they find their obsessions creeping in again.

 How does obsessive compulsive disorder treatment work?

Usually, treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder involves talking therapies, for example cognitive behavioural therapy and exposure response prevention therapy. Exposure response prevention therapy works by exposing the person who has OCD to their triggers, and delaying their compulsions. It is important to follow guidance from a professional during this treatment, rather than do it yourself. This is because if too big a step is made, it can increase anxiety too much and make it even more difficult for the patient. Medication like serotonin sensitive reuptake inhibitors can also be included in treatment for OCD, as they help to regulate mood and reduce anxiety. 

However, medication alone would not be enough in most cases. Although obsessive compulsive disorder can become very severe, it is never too late to seek treatment. Treatment may be difficult, but has been proven to be very effective in helping those with the disorder.

 Are some people more predisposed to OCD?

Genetics play a huge part in the risk of developing OCD. They’re thought to be around 50% responsible. If someone has a close family member suffering with obsessive compulsive disorder, they’re more likely to. It is also thought that other mental illnesses can increase the risk too, as a lot of people with OCD have other mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. It can be worsened by stress, but stress isn’t the main cause. OCD can also be brought on by childhood trauma and big life events.

Eating Disorder Treatment in the UK – Is the System Flawless

 What is an eating disorder?

Eating disorders are mental illnesses that affect your intake of food, thoughts and opinions on the subject and eating patterns. They often develop as a coping mechanism to manage difficult feelings. Some may be aware that this is what they’re doing, while others may not be. This blog post will be about eating disorder treatment in the UK, how it works, and the things that need to change.

How many people in the UK have an eating disorder?

Approximately 725,000 people of all ages, genders, cultural or racial backgrounds in the United Kingdom are living with eating disorders. While this number is given, there could be many more suffering from eating disorders in silence, as a huge part of an eating disorder is the feeling of shame that can come with it.

What are symptoms of eating disorders?

Symptoms of eating disorders include food restriction, overeating, being very strict with diet, loss of control when eating, anxiety about eating around other people, eating in secret, eating in response to emotions, being obsessed with food, having body dysmorphia, monitoring weight very often. Alongside these symptoms people with eating disorders often experience a lot of anxiety, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and may develop long-term physical health problems.

How would I go about getting eating disorder treatment in the UK?

The first step to receiving eating disorder treatment in the UK, is to visit your GP. Explain to your GP the symptoms that concern you. As most GP surgeries are not equipped to deal with mental health problems, they should refer you to a mental health service. Depending on whereabouts you live, there may be a service nearby that specifically deals with eating disorders.  Medication is not typically offered unless it will be alongside treatment. The treatment you receive depends on your eating disorder, the symptoms and the severity of them. 

Currently, the NHS offers a guided self-help programme, in which you’re given a book to guide you through the process of changing your eating disorder behaviours. Alongside this, support sessions are given to discuss thoughts and monitor progress. The NHS also offers psycho-education, which will educate on your symptoms, triggers and how to manage difficult feelings in healthier ways.

Anorexia Treatment

Anorexia treatment can be different to the above. This is because when somebody has reached an extremely low weight, they not only need help around their behaviours but help and often supervision to restore their weight.

Controversy

The problem with eating disorder treatment in the UK is that often, whether you are taken seriously or not can depend on your BMI. Many who have anorexia, or display anorexic behaviours, may not be referred for treatment if their BMI isn’t low enough. This is partially due to lack of mental health resources. While BMI can be helpful to doctors to signify a problem, it is an out of date tool that cannot be applied to everybody. Everybody is different. 

Some people may appear the same size but be different weights. Being denied treatment for an eating disorder solely based on weight not being ‘low enough’ is a trigger in itself, causing people to become more ill. While treatment can be effective, the system doesn’t always allow it to be, and this is its biggest flaw.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment – How does it work?

 First of all, what is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?

After a traumatic event, our brains sometimes change. This can cause symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Most people will experience symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for up to 4 weeks after a traumatic event. However, some may experience symptoms for longer. This is when medical/psychiatric intervention is required to help relieve symptoms. 

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatments

What counts as a ‘traumatic’ event?

A traumatic event could be anything – the most obvious being on a battlefield. However, it could also be losing a parent from a young age, caring for someone when they’re extremely ill until death, being in a car crash, losing somebody to suicide, or abuse at any age. There are many potential causes of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is why Post Traumatic Stress Disorder treatment should be tailored to individuals.

What are the symptoms of PTSD?

For Post Traumatic Stress Disorder treatment to continue to improve, there has to be an understanding of the symptoms. Symptoms of PTSD include emotional dysregulation, mood swings, trembling, palpitations, nightmares, flashbacks, avoidance behaviours, dissociation and more. These symptoms can be extremely difficult to live with for the sufferer, but also for those close to the person suffering.

What is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment?

Post traumatic stress disorder treatment comes in a few forms. When diagnosed with PTSD symptoms, it is likely talking therapies may be offered. One example would be cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). This can be helpful to those who might avoid certain situations because of the trauma that they experienced. It can help them to change their way of thinking in those situations and rationalise them more easily. For some, CBT might not be enough. EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) can be another option for sufferers of PTSD. Although this is a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder treatment that is still being explored, it has proven to be very effective so far. It has been extensively researched, and what makes it different to other more conventional therapies is that the main focus of it is to help heal the brain. This is because trauma actually alters the brain.

How does EMDR work?

After a traumatic experience, the brain starts a recovery process. The hippocampus, which deals with memory and learning, communicates with the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala (these deal with behaviour and stress signals). Sometimes the recovery process takes longer, especially if a person is still distressed by the event that occurred. EMDR helps this recovery process to continue so that it can eventually be resolved. Although I’m referring to EMDR as a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder treatment, it can also be used for phobias, eating disorders, sleep disturbance, depression, and many other mental health problems.

How long does EMDR take?

Most people need fewer EMDR sessions for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder treatment than other forms of psychotherapy.  This means it can be quite a popular choice.

What about medication for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment?

Sometimes, medication is prescribed as a form of treatment. Usually the medicine would be a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor – this is a modern anti-depressant, also known as an SSRI. These are known to have fewer side effects than older anti-depressants.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – You Can’t Always See It

 

What is OCD?

Obsessive compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder that’s characterised by rituals and compulsions used to rid the sufferer of distressing intrusive thoughts. There is a common perception of OCD (not helped by TV shows like, ‘Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners’ and others similar), that it’s just an enjoyment or obsession with cleaning. Cleaning can become an obsession or a compulsion for a sufferer of OCD, but many people diagnosed with OCD find it affects them in different ways to that. As it can be complex, it can be hard to imagine obsessive compulsive disorder treatment is possible.

 

Examples of OCD

For example, recently I spoke to somebody who had experienced harm OCD. Harm OCD is when you experience intrusive thoughts about harm you might cause to yourself or other people. It can lead to avoidance behaviour. In a mother or a father, this might mean they avoid holding or being near their child because they worry they might harm them. It can also mean things like driving down a road several times to check that you didn’t run somebody over without realising. Another person I have spoken to that struggles with OCD has spent up to 6 hours performing compulsions (checking every single thing in his house), and during this time everybody in the house has to remain completely silent – if they make a sound, things don’t feel ‘right’, so he has to start all over again, or face a panic attack. The severity of these cases makes you wonder if obsessive compulsive disorder treatment could help.

 

What are intrusive thoughts?

Everybody has intrusive thoughts. It’s completely normal to have thoughts ‘appear’ that could be something you don’t agree with. However, people with OCD become very anxious or distressed about these thoughts. They doubt themselves and ruminate over them, and in a lot of cases they convince themselves that they are terrible people because of their intrusive thoughts. If everybody has intrusive thoughts, how does obsessive compulsive disorder treatment help?

 

What’s different about intrusive thoughts when it comes to OCD?

With OCD, intrusive thoughts lead to compulsions or rituals that may help the person relieve their anxiety for a short time. These rituals and compulsions can be obvious, like the ones mentioned above, or other things like compulsive hand-washing. However some compulsions are a lot less noticeable. A common compulsion would be reassurance seeking – somebody with OCD might steer the conversation in a direction that will end up reassuring them about their intrusive thoughts. Counting and checking can also be done mentally – checking thoughts, checking memories etc. The worst part is that all of these things only lead to further self-doubt and anxiety in the long run.

 

Treatments

Obsessive compulsive disorder treatment is available. Most people with OCD have obsessive tendencies, meaning that even when the condition is manageable or nearly ‘cured’, it is possible to become worse again. This is why treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder includes coping mechanisms that can be used in every day life, whether it be through exposure response prevention therapy or cognitive behavioural therapy. Some patients require antidepressants (usually SSRIs) alongside their treatment, as treatment can be quite intense and raise anxiety levels for a while. However, antidepressants alone are not usually the answer to obsessive compulsive disorder, so it’s important when visiting a GP to request to be referred to specialist services.

Psychological Defence Mechanisms

 

What are Psychological Defence Mechanisms?

Everybody has psychological defence mechanisms. They're the body's way of protecting itself from psychological pain. There are a few different kinds of psychological defence mechanisms. The easiest one to explain would be denial. This is something that most people experience when they're going through a bereavement. We show examples of this in our programme about psychological defence mechanisms. A widow has just attended her husband's funeral, but she feels like he is still around and could walk through the door any minute. She doesn't want to believe he is gone because it's too painful for her. Another example of denial would be a smoker not being able to accept that they're addicted to nicotine - 'I'm not addicted, I could quit any time, I just choose not to.' Another well known defence mechanism is regression. In our programme on the subject, we introduce a young boy who, at the age of 5, has started to wet the bed at night. It is found that this is due to home stresses caused by his parents' divorce.

Can psychological defence mechanisms cause harm?

The strange thing about psychological defence mechanisms, is that although they're the unconscious mind's method of defence, they can still end up causing harm. Psychosis can alter a person's perspective on reality, causing delusions and sometimes hallucinations. An example I can think of more recently would be somebody I came across on youtube. She told the story of how the death of her dog during a very stressful point in her life triggered psychosis - her voice changed (she was speaking like a child), and she spoke about trying to go into the forest at night to be with her dog. After a few weeks, she started to come out of her psychosis. It was a very scary ordeal for her and her family, as she couldn't remember much of what had gone on.

Other Psychological Defence Mechanisms

 The mechanisms mentioned are only a few of the defence mechanisms that we know of. There are others, such as dissociation, repression, displacement, and sublimation. Dissociation can be anything from a mild detachment from everything around you, to not being able to engage in any experience. It occurs as a result of stress, conflict or in some cases even boredom. Most victims of abuse have issues with dissociating, and develop dissociative disorders as a result of their trauma. Displacement is a very common defence mechanism. An example would be if somebody felt a lot of anger towards a person, and expressed their anger by breaking something (rather than hitting or yelling at that person). Sublimation is similar to this, but instead of doing something unacceptable to satisfy the anger, the person puts their negative feelings/energy into something more constructive and socially acceptable.

Our Programme on Psychological Defence Mechanisms

A few of these mechanisms are explored in our own programme, called, 'Psychological Defence Mechanisms', which is currently available to watch on our website. There are also many other programmes on various mental health problems, including depression and anxiety, schizophrenia, OCD and eating disorders.

Eating Disorder Treatment In The UK – How Does It Work And What Needs To Change?

What Is An Eating Disorder?

An eating disorder is a mental health condition that revolves around food, and using food to cope with uncomfortable feelings and sometimes other situations, such as trauma. This can mean eating too little or eating too much, worrying about weight or specific parts of the body and what they look like, and compensatory behaviour e.g. using laxatives to ‘get rid of’ food that has been consumed, or over-exercising.

Types Of Eating Disorder

- Anorexia Nervosa – Controlling weight by restricting food intake, over-exercising or a combination of the two.

- Bulimia Nervosa – Struggling to control the amount of food eaten and then taking unhealthy drastic action to ‘reverse’ this.

- Binge Eating Disorder – Regularly eating large amounts of food until past full, and struggling to control this behaviour.

Who Is Most Likely To Develop An Eating Disorder?

Eating disorder treatment in the UK isn’t as accessible as it should be. An eating disorder can affect anybody, but are most likely to develop in the teenage years. They can continue into adulthood if left untreated, and can put the sufferer at risk of many complications, such as diabetes, liver problems, heart problems, osteoporosis, and death. Eating disorders are often thought of as a teenage girl problem, however, many boys and men are also affected by eating disorders. Stigmatising the issue often leads boys and men to feel more shame about their behaviours and so they are less likely to seek help.

Eating Disorder Treatment In The UK

If you think you may be suffering with an eating disorder, you should visit your GP to address your concerns. Your GP should take you seriously and refer you to specialists who will be able to help with a diagnosis and treatment for your eating disorder. Eating disorder treatment in the UK varies depending on the disorder, and the severity of it. For example, someone with Bulimia Nervosa may require regular meetings with a therapist and see a lot of progress using a self-help book and eating plan which helps them repair their relationship with food and increase their self-esteem. Alongside this, blood tests should also be taken to ensure that there are no health problems as a result of the eating disorder behaviours. Somebody with a very severe case of Bulimia Nervosa may need constant supervision and therefore it would be better for them to be admitted as an in-patient so that they can be supervised through recovery.

Therapies

Therapy is a big part of eating disorder treatment in the UK, and elsewhere in the world. Depending on the eating disorder, the therapies that may be used are cognitive behavioural therapy, cognitive analytic therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy, and family interventions. Someone struggling with an eating disorder may also be referred to a self-help support group. 

Barriers To Treatment

Unfortunately, with mental health services being stretched and eating disorders being highly misunderstood by many, there can be barriers to treatment for those with eating disorders. One barrier is weight. For some eating disorders, like Anorexia Nervosa, being underweight is often a symptom. Depending on whereabouts in the United Kingdom you are, BMI may be taken into account when admitting somebody with an eating disorder. Sadly, this means a lot of people who are overweight but suffering with an eating disorder struggle to get treatment for it and aren’t taken seriously. It reinforces the idea that somebody can’t have an eating disorder unless they are underweight, which is not true at all. As well as this, sufferers may feel that they are not ‘sick enough’ to seek treatment, which may worsen disordered eating behaviours and put them at more risk.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – OCD Myths

What Do You Think OCD Is?

Most people have heard the term ‘OCD’, but the real question is, has it been used in the right context? Many associates ‘OCD’ with traits like being neat, clean and tidy. While these can come as a part of OCD, they’re not what defines it. OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder – this is shocking for some who use the term on a regular basis, as they might not realise it is an actual anxiety disorder.

 

What Is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Really?

Obsessive compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterised by distressing intrusive thoughts and the compulsions or rituals that someone may perform to reduce their anxiety around these thoughts. Intrusive thoughts can be relating to the cleanliness or tidiness of a room, but there are many kinds of intrusive thoughts that can come with obsessive compulsive disorder, not just these. Sometimes obsessive compulsive disorder Treatments affects people in a way that has nothing to do with this. For example, intrusive thoughts can be worrying you might accidentally harm or kill somebody, unpleasant sexual thoughts, anything that you might not necessarily WANT to think, but that just comes into your head. Intrusive thoughts are something that everyone experiences, but not everyone can just dismiss them. To some, they feel extreme guilt or worry around the intrusive thought and they have to check things, count to a certain number, wash their hands a certain number of times in order to rid themselves of the thought. This is only temporary and often the dependence on the compulsions becomes more severe over time.

What Are Compulsions?

Compulsions can be all sorts of things. One that we would be familiar with from TV shows and films would be obsessive cleaning, and checking things are in place. Other compulsions include ‘neutralising bad thoughts’ by thinking good things to counteract the bad thought, ruminating, hand-washing and many more. One that a lot of people wouldn’t realise is a compulsion is reassurance seeking. This can come through in different ways – checking what people think of something you have said or done, or disguised in a normal conversation which is often guided by the person who needs the reassurance, until they find the reassurance they need. Some may say the same things to lots of different people in the form of ‘oversharing’ to get the reassurance they need over and over again. So obsessive compulsive disorder is not necessarily what the media portrays it as.

OCD Can Be Treated

Obsessive compulsive disorder affects each person differently. How severe it is can also vary, but there is treatment for OCD, usually in the form of talking therapies and exposure response prevention therapy. Exposure response prevention therapy challenges the patient to withstand their anxiety around not performing a compulsion until the anxiety starts to dip. Some may be able to do small exercises at their own home, while others might have OCD so severe that they need supervision and guidance by a professional.