Take control of your life and beat Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder can be a debilitating thing to live with. It can rob the sufferer of their time, their relationships, and their productivity. As a family member, it is very hard to see a loved on trapped in rituals that everyone, including the sufferer, know are unnecessary. At the root of OCD is uncontrolled anxiety. The goal of treatment is to get the sufferer to a point where they can tolerate their anxiety without indulging in their obsession.

The best treatment for OCD is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) with exposure therapy. This style of therapy consists of teaching the patient about how thoughts, feelings, and actions can influence each other in order to reduce anxiety. Critically, successful treatment for OCD also involves the therapist and the patient going outside the office and exposing the client to their trigger while not giving in to the compulsion. This therapy helps the client challenge the belief that leads to their compulsion, in order to exhibit control in the future. It is by far the most effective treatment for OCD with the best outcomes in the medium and long-term.

Sometimes the compulsions can be too overwhelming to be overcome with therapy alone. This is where the psychiatric professionals at Youthful Minds Psychiatry can help. We can prescribe psychiatric medication that can take the edge off the anxiety of the obsession, allowing them to exert control. If they are already in therapy, it can enhance the benefits of therapy. The most common and safest treatment for OCD are Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors such as escitalopram and sertraline. More advanced treatments can involve ondansetron or aripiprazole. The latest in cutting edge treatments such as transcranial magnetic stimulation or ketamine can also be discussed.

True Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is rarer in children than it is adults. More often highly-sensitive or highly-anxious children can develop strong preferences for rituals, but these preferences are more closely associated with anxiety rather than true OCD. The treatment remains very similar for these two problems.