OCD

Question 1

What is OCD

Answer 1

Obsessive compulsive disorder is a mental health condition where you have recurring thoughts and repetitive behaviours that you cannot control

Question 2

Emotional features of ocd

Answer 2

Extreme anxiety. - persistent or forbidden ideas create excessively high levels of anxiety

Question 3

Behavioural features of ocd

Answer 3

• hinder everyday functioning

- social impairment - anxiety so high it limits the ability to conduct meaningful relationships

Question 4

Cognitive features of ocd

Answer 4

• recognised as self generated - understand their obsessive thoughts, impulses and images are self invented
• recurrent and persistent thoughts - repeated obsessive thoughts
• realisation of inappropriateness - understand their obsessive thoughts are inappropriate but cannot consciously control them

Question 5

Biological explanation of ocd

Answer 5

Genetics - it has been proposed that there is a genetic component to ocd which predisposes some individuals to the illness

Question 6

What is the COMT gene

Answer 6

• everyone has one

- helps reduce the action of dopamine

Question 7

SERT gene

Answer 7

• affects the transport of serotonin, creating lower levels of this neurotransmitter
• lower levels of serotonin have been implicated with OCD

Question 8

Ocd biological treatment

Answer 8

• most commonly used biological therapy for anxiety disorders is drug therapy
• antidepressant called SSRIs
• increases levels of serotonin in the brain