Lecture 6: Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders: Chapter 7 (186-201) Flashcards
What is the common factor in obsessive-compulsive and related disorders?
Repeated thoughts and behaviors that are so extreme they interfere with daily life
What are 3 obsessive compulsive related disorders? What is common for all 3?
- OCD
- Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD)
- Hoarding disorder
All share repetitive thought and irresistable urges to engage repetitively in some behavior
What is hoarding disorder?
Acquisition of an excessive number of objects and an inability to part with those objects
What are 2 key features of OCD?
- Obsessions: repetitive, intrusive thoughts or urges
- Compulsions: repetitive behaviors or mental acts that a person feels compelled to perform
What is trichotillomania?
Compulsive hair pulling
What is excoriation disorder?
Compulsive skin picking
What are the goals of compulsions?
- Preventing or reducing anxiety or distress
- Preventing event or situation
What are 3 criteria for OCD?
Obsessions and/or compulsions
Time consuming >1hour per day, or distress/impairment
What is the difference between overt and covert compulsions?
Overt: observable (hand washing)
Covert: not observable (compulsive thoughts)
How can cognitive treatment be a compulsion?
Sometimes if you treat someone, they actually take the cognitive strategies you teach them as new compulsions
What did the classic study of Rachman and de Silva demonstrate?
That nobody can say whether intrusions are normal or abnormal. Students did equally well as experienced psychologists in identifying abnormal or normal intrusions
What are 2 similarities of intrusions between OCD patients and control groups?
- Most people have intrusions
- Form and content are quite similar
What are 5 differences for intrusions in OCD patients compared to controls?
- Higher frequency of intrusions
- More intense experience of intrusions
- Longer duration
- More distress
- Stronger urge to neutralize
What are 3 possible causes of OCD concerning cognitive styles? Give an example of each)
General reasoning errors:
1. Emotional reasoning
–> I’m afraid so there is danger
2. Magical thinking/superstition
–> If I step on the cracks of the tiles, my mom will die
3. Dichotomous thinking
–> omission = commission
What does dichotomous thinking in OCD patients mean? Give an example
Omission = commission
So they think forgetting something and something bad happens is equally bad as intentionally doing something and something bad happens
E.g. forget to turn stove off or intentionally not turn stove off
What do behavioral models say about the etiology of OCD?
Compulsions arise from a high sensitivity to operant conditioning. They feel relieved if they’ve done the compulsion
= Neurotic paradox
What does the Thought Action Fusion (TAF) model say about the etiology of OCD? What are its 2 dimensions and give examples for each?
According to this model, the problem with OCD is not the initial intrusive thought, but the response to the thought
Dimensions:
1. Likelihood: thinking about it increases chances it occurs
–> Thinking about wife having a car crash –> suppress thought because otherwise it will happen
- Moral: thinking about it is equivalent to acting
–> Thought of harming child: bad mother!
What is the white bear effect and what does it demonstrate?
If instructed to not think of a white bear in the next minute, you think more about it
So if one suppresses a thought, the thought usually occurs more
What can be a possible consequence of excessive checking?
Memory distrust
What are the prevalences of OCD, BDD and hoarding disorder?
OCD: 1,3%
BDD: 3%
Hoarding: 1,5%
How do prevalences differ in men vs. women for OCD, BDD and hoarding disorder?
OCD: slightly more among women than men
BDD: equal prevalence
Hoarding: more common in men than women (but animal hoarding more common in women)
What are 6 common foci of obsessions in OCD?
- Contamination
- Responsibility for harm
- Sex/morality
- Violence
- Religion
- Symmetry/order
What are 5 foci of compulsions in OCD?
- Decontamination
- Checking
- Repeat routine activities
- Ordering/arranging
- Mental rituals
What are 4 symptoms of BDD?
- Preoccupation with one/more perceived defects in appearance
- Others find the defects slight or unobservable
- Performance of repetitive behaviors/mental acts (mirror checking)
- Preoccupation not restricted to weight or body fat concerns