Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a very common mindbody syndrome experienced by patients who have shown a susceptibility to
psychosomatic pain conditions.
OCD is one on the most disabling of all psychological conditions and can keep a person prisoner to compulsions for years at a time. OCD is a classic distractive mechanism employed by the subconscious mind to camouflage repressed emotional issues, thoughts and feelings.OCD comes in many severities. A great number of people find themselves burdened by minor and inconvenient rituals, obsessions and practices. These people are usually very functional and may even be able to completely hide the OCD from the outside world. Other patients have completely surrendered to compulsions, making each and every day an exhausting process of ritual after ritual, forcing them progressively further from a normal life.
What is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?
OCD is a syndrome which exists completely in the mind. It does not usually cause any pain or physical symptoms directly, but controls the patient’s life, nonetheless. OCD is characterized as having an inner voice which compels the patient to perform seemingly meaningless rituals over and over again. These compulsions usually have no rhyme or reason, but the patient feels they are important to accomplish and must be done above all other things. Many patients feel a sense of dread or looming disaster if they can not perform their rituals in the exact prescribed fashion. Of course, there is no logic in these thoughts, but the patient must cater to the whim of the condition or lose the ability to do anything else till the ritualistic task is completed. Patients who are interrupted in the course of satisfying their OCD have varying reactions. Some feel embarrassed, but continue until the tasks are complete. Some have
anxiety
attacks if they can not complete their rituals. Severe cases might involve a nervous breakdown if the rituals can not be completed for any reason at all. A few may become violent if prevented from doing what their inner voice commands. These rituals or compulsions are often menial tasks normally performed in the course of an average day. However, for an OCD sufferer, these tasks are set in a particular order and repeated over and over again until the compulsion is satisfied.
Common Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Rituals
Any action which can be performed can be a part of an OCD complex. Most rituals involve checking, organizing or repeating a given action. Rituals can consist of spoken phrases, singing a song, washing the hands, organizing anything, or almost any conceivable activity at all. There are patients with one primary obsessive ritual, while other patients have literally thousands of compulsions which occupy their time from the moment they wake till the time they finally sleep. Having severe OCD is akin to being a prisoner in a self constructed jail. In this prison, OCD sufferers are both the convict and the guard. They make these seemingly illogical rules that MUST be complied with at all costs and they punish themselves if these tasks can not be completed.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Causes
Many psychiatrists feel this is a condition which is caused by a physical defect in the brain. Studies usually show some corresponding chemical in over-abundance or in short supply in the brain itself. However, this condition is clearly psychological, not anatomical, and can not be cured with physical treatments. The most powerful drugs prescribed for OCD do not do anything to cure the underlying causes of the symptoms. They merely bury the syndrome under a haze of drug induced pseudo-lobotomy. This often causes the repressed emotional issues to fester and grow, just waiting for the pharmaceutical effects to end, so they might explode forth once again in an even more vicious display of control and domination. Patients with OCD are also commonly afflicted with other psychological conditions as well, including depression and anxiety.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Advice
I am an advocate of using
knowledge therapy
for treating this condition. I have seen it exist many times, to one degree or another, in patients with
psychological back pain,
as well as a host of other mindbody pain conditions. The processes behind psychosomatic pain and distractive OCD symptoms are identical. They are instituted by the subconscious mind, in an effort to protect the individual’s consciousness from threatening emotional concerns which have been repressed. These issues are not hidden deeply enough, however, since they are always seeking a means of escaping into consciousness. The OCD symptoms act as a distraction from these emotional issues. They occupy the conscious mind; preventing it from inadvertently discovering some piece of repressed thought and anything which might help those jailed emotions gain their conscious freedom. OCD is one of the most successful of all these syndromes, since it really makes the patient concentrate on tiny details constantly, in order to fulfill the self imposed imperative to complete all rituals in the proper way, at the proper time. If you have obsessive compulsive disorder, there is help which can stop the drugs and stop the rituals. The cure exists in the same place as the tormenting condition... The MIND. Knowledge therapy acts psychologically, to cure the underlying causes of compulsions. There is a life beyond the rituals and there is so much more to living than just OCD. You owe it to yourself, and those you love, to get help.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to Back Pain
4/30/08 Revised 2/7/12
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