ON THE COVER
My Weekly’s favourite GP from TV and radio writes for you
Most of us associate obsession with over-possessive partners, or maybe ruthless business men. But obsession is also a medical term.
Obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD, comes in all forms. It can show itself as a need to wash your hands 40 times a day, or a conviction that harm will come to the family if the sufferer doesn’t undertake certain rituals.
In medical terms, obsessions are any thoughts that keep coming back however hard you try to ignore them. We all have times of worry – if a neighbour is burgled it’s normal to be anxious about security for a few weeks. A person with OCD, by contrast, might be obsessed with being burgled or attacked every waking minute.
Obsessions tend to fit into one of several groups. People with a “symmetry factor” may feel constantly uneasy that something bad will happen if their surroundings aren’t precisely organised. With a “cleaning factor” you may be convinced that you or others will come to harm from germs. Some people with OCD are plagued by “forbidden thoughts” – violent or sexual images. Finally, hoarding is recognised as a form of OCD – sufferers are convinced that disaster will strike if they throw anything away. Some have more than one obsession.
The second part of the disorder, the compulsion, is an overwhelming urge to do something to deal with the anxiety the obsessive thought causes. Often the compulsion is directly linked to the obsession. One of the best