Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a disabling anxiety disorder. If anyone has OCD, he may fear that everything he touches is contaminated with germs, and in order to ease that fear, you repeatedly wash your hands. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) usually begins in adolescence or young adulthood and is seen in as many as 1 in 200 children and adolescents. For many years, mental health professionals thought of OCD as a rare disease because only a small minority of their patients had the condition. The disorder often went unrecognized because many of those afflicted with OCD, in efforts to keep their repetitive thoughts and behaviors secret, failed to seek treatment.

Causes

Some medical researchers believe that OCD is a result of changes in your body's own natural chemistry. Some reports associate OCD with head trauma or infections. Many believe that all anxiety disorders are associated with feeling a lack of control that can be traced to the experience of insecure attachment in infancy and early childhood. OCD often occurs in people who have other anxiety disorders, depression, Tourette syndrome, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, substance abuse, eating disorders, and certain personality disorders. Approximately 20 to 40 percent of adolescents with OCD also experience one or more types of eating disorders, which will also require treatment.

Symptoms

OCD symptoms involving obsessions may include:

* Fear of being contaminated by shaking hands or by touching objects

* Doubts that you have locked the door or turned off the stove

* Repeated thoughts that you have hurt someone in a traffic accident

* Intense distress when objects aren't orderly, lined up properly or facing the right way

* Images of hurting your child

* Impulses to shout obscenities in inappropriate situations

* Avoidance of situations that can trigger obsessions, such as shaking hands

* Replaying pornographic images in your mind

* Dermatitis because of frequent hand washing

* Skin lesions because of picking at the skin

* Hair loss or bald spots because of hair pulling

Treatment

Effective treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder are available, and research is yielding new, improved therapies that can help most people with OCD and other anxiety disorders lead productive, fulfilling lives.

A therapist will work with the person to identify his or her unreasonable obsessions and will help him or her realize that the effects of their thoughts are not catastrophic. The aim is to teach people to control their anxiety without relying on ritualized behavior.

The first medication considered is usually a type of antidepressant called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). These drugs include fluvoxamine (Luvox), fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), paroxetine (Paxil), and citalopram (Celexa).