Length: 1731 words (6.3 pages)
Rating: Red (FREE)      
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

 

 

 

Introduction

 

I want to write about obsessive-compulsive disorder because it is a very important thing in the life of humans that is present and that sometimes it is not taken care of or the people don't really know a lot about it. And when it is present people don't know what it is happening with the person provoking the ritual and then the question from the observer comes and commentaries are maid without really knowing the truth of what really is happening.

 

 

In this essay I will include the relation with anthropology and the disorder. The striking similarities between the form and content of normal ritual and the ritualistic behavior of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

How is a normal ritual a basic necessary component of human cultural behavior, and how this normal cultural behavior can change into a disorder.

I will include the explanation of OCD, and how it can be cured the history behind this and how it is present in this days. All this answers come from an extensive research of professional people that is treating this and have maid professional pages about this behavior, so I will try to put it in the most understandable words possible.

 

 

The anthropology of Ritual

 

 

Most people know a ritual when they see one. This includes a formalized behavior, that is a sequence of actions usually repeated, that often have a religious or solemn content, this actions are made to achieve something needed by the person provoking the rituals.

These kinds of actions are useful and informative to the anthropologist, who is trying to characterize a group of people by its social behavior. All this information has become an important source in the work of an ethnographer.

In addition to the above ideas, ritual actions most often take great depth on social meaning, and typically are performed in a need, desire or intent to be a part of a group.

So in the explanation of what is a ritual it can be defined as a formal behavior for occasions not performed very often for our normal routines, having reference to beliefs in mystical beings or powers.

The problems with some rituals are that if it is not on symbolism it is not highly, visible and therefore, very hard to interpret, this can be a secular ritual.

So we can also define ritual as performances as highly complex action sets. On a simple level, action sets are stylized body movements that are incorporated into such diverse activities as conversations, children games, and gesture scripts such as bowing or hand-shaking.

The rituals are always acted out, and may involve prescriptive verbalizations. But whatever the ritualistic actions may be, they are directed towards the accomplishment of some goal that is consciously imagined on the part of the performers. At times the ritual can be full of emotion and meaning, and other times banal. Some social and some private.

Various actions sets can be classified as rituals and can be performed by the same group of people without loosing its common denominator.  But what anthropologists have found intriguing have been the meanings and social implications ascribed to rituals by the group that performs all this actions.

 

Obsessive Compulsive disorder as Pathology

 

 

An example of obsessive-compulsive disorder is:

 

Enter the bathroom, with left foot first

Close the door with left hand, then touch door handle with right hand.

Take towel from rail and keep it on edge of bath with the left hand, then touch it with the right hand.

Take toothbrush from cabinet and place it on the edge of washbasin with left hand then again return and touch it with the right hands.

 

 

And all this actions will continue through the whole long process made by the performer to have a normal daily sanitarian cleaning.

But not only this kind of action are performed there are many different millions of different kind of actions done through the whole day, I could right without stopping 100 pages and more on the explanation of the process of repetition that is done sometimes by a single person for the whole day, but it only will show us that all this actions are based on repetitions.

 

 

So we can say that obsessions are classified as repetitive or intrusive thoughts, impulses, or images that cause a marked anxiety distress. And compulsions are defined as repetitive ritualistic behavior or mental acts that the patient feels driven to perform that are done for the only purpose of reducing distress, but are not realistically connected with that distress. Sometimes and must of the time obsessions and compulsions are linked and one can provoke the other. Because outward behavior is much more easily studied in cultural anthropology than ideas hard to depict of human mind I am going to base my explanation on the behavioral aspect of OCD.

 

 

Aspects of compulsive behavior:

1) The actions are repetitive and formalized

2) The patient feels driven to perform them

3) The acts are performed to reduce distress, and are not ends in themselves

4) The patient may recognize the behavior is unreasonable and unrealistic

5) The patient finds the behavior to be disturbing and attempts to resist and or avoid situations where ritualizing will become necessesary.

 

 

 

The first deals with the observable characteristics of OCD behavior. Typically OCD behavior involves excessive washing, checking, ordering, concern with symmetry, counting, hoarding and or repeating words silently or aloud.

The second and third criteria concern the patient perceived motivation for performing the behaviors. But the acts themselves do not produce pleasure, they only provide relief from the discomfort or distress that a person is having. So OCD behaviors are not gratifying, they are uncomfortable, and simultaneously irresistible.

The final two criteria are the most important for distinguishing OCD -like behavior from normal ritualizing. When a patient realizes that the behaviors that act to reduce distress are not reasonably connected to the real world concerns, yet feels good to perform them here is when OCD is the usual diagnosis. Some patients with OCD do not interpret their actions unreasonable, but instead develop elaborate explanations for them; this is particularly common in children. So OCD is currently classified as anxiety disorder.

 

Treatment of Compulsive Ritualization

 

Prior to 1966 the only knew effective treatment for OCD was psychosurgery, witch was only performed in extremely severe cases.

For the vast majority some relief from symptoms occurs with the behavior therapy, medication, or combination of the two. The most frequent treatment modalities are:

 

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

This treatment of OCD is exposure and ritual prevention, encourage patients to expose themselves to situations that normally trigger a need to ritualize, and then prevent the behavior until the discomfort subsides. This is conducted initially in the presence of the therapist, and then the patient is instructed to try the technique increasingly in his or her own. This is more successful when accompanied by a cognitive therapy designed to equip the patient with alternative techniques for coping with the distress.

Usually patients are reluctant to go with the guided exposure to cues that normally trigger rituals, there are reports that a lot of patients recommended for this type of therapy refuse to comply or do not complete the treatment due to the massive increase in discomfort and depression associated with exposure and ritual prevention.

A recent variation in this treatment has included the use of computer simulation or guidance in exposure to behavior triggers.  

 

 

Pharmacotherapy

 

The other major focus of treatment for OCD is medication based. The discovery in 1966 that clomipramine (anafabril) is effective in reducing OCD symptoms sparked a flood of research into neurobiology of OCD and its management with prescriptions drugs. The central role of SEROTONIN in OCD is now very important in the answer of why this actions are repeated and there is new types of medicine that have been created to the treatment of this disorder.

The responses to drugs are remarkably different than those to only exposure and obviously the responses are better. The depressive patients treated with clomipramine show highly response rates, and require up to four weeks before improvement is measurable.

 

 

Other drugs have subsequently been shown to be effective in the treatment of OCD. These drugs include fluvoxamine (luvox, faverin, Floxyfral), floxetine (Prozac), and sertaline (Zoloft). This drugs are good when perfoming the actions of the exposure of the trigger. And obviously all the individuals vary in their response to these drugs.

 

Combined Approaches

 

The most common recommendation is the combination of the types of therapy. Relapse is common upon withdrawal of the medication, suggesting the term for long term prescriptions; while cognitive-behavioral therapy is still effective even if administered in a time limited fashion.

It should be emphasized that no "magic bullet" exists in the array of available treatment of OCD.        



 

Conclusion

 

 

In my essay I gave a general explanation of what is OCD how it is created, how it is cured and the most important thing for this class is how is it related to anthropology, even dough anthropology has not reciprocated the interest, perhaps because of the combination of biology and culture is repellent, do I hope there is more to come in the part of research from the anthropologies.

I liked a lot to write this essay because I found a lot of new interesting things of OCD and also for the first time I learned how it can be related with anthropology. So I hope this essay helps you as much as it helped me to understand many aspects of the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

I also think that this essay will help me to continue my extensive research of obsessive compulsive disorder, and I think it also will help others that can read and understand what really is happening in their surroundings, so they can help and learn of something that can even be happening to discomfort persons near them, and to see how they can help.

 

I hoped you like it as I really did, and if you want to learn more I invite you to see the movie as good as it gets, and visit my official web-page of the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.