TITLE

Living With O.C.D. in a Pandemic

DESCRIPTION

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a very disabling problem for many, and the covid pandemic has made it worse.  In fact, many who don’t have OCD have developed similar symptoms due to the anxiety about contamination and exposure to the covid virus.   Obsessions are thoughts and Compulsions are repetitional behaviors.  We all do this, but what makes OCD different, is that the suffer has little or no control.  “But the clinical syndrome, in which people have unbidden recurring thoughts that lead to repetitive habits, is far more than a collection of quirky behaviors. Rather, it is a highly distressing and chronic neuropsychological condition that can trigger serious anxiety and make it difficult to function well in school, at work or at home….For someone with O.C.D., certain circumstances or actions that most people would consider harmless, like touching a doorknob, are believed to have potentially dire consequences that require extreme corrective responses, if not total avoidance. A person may so fear germs, for example, that shaking someone’s hand can compel them to wash their own hand 10, 20 or even 30 times to be sure it’s clean….For many, the Covid-19 pandemic only made things worse.”  The article provides many examples as well as focuses on the three types of therapy that have been empirically proven to help.

SOURCE

New York Times, August 16, 2021, by Jane E. Brody

LINK TO RESOURCE

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/16/well/mind/ocd-pandemic.html?smid=url-share

(Tiny URL)  https://tinyurl.com/zs4cvw6v

CLASS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

•What is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?   What are some examples?

•How has the pandemic intensified the disorder for suffers?

•The article discusses three types of empirically validated treatments for OCD?  What are these treatments?  How do they function?