Latest OCD & Panic News from Dr. Steven Brodsky-2 http://www.ocdhotline.com/id9.html Latest OCD & Panic News from Dr. Steven Brodsky-2 Fri, 20 Apr 2012 06:42:38 GMT en-us Trellix SiteBuilder 6.7.8 http://backend.userland.com/rss JUNE WEDDINGS BRING NON-STOP LOVE DOUBTS http://www.ocdhotline.com/2012.04.01_arch.html#1334466763056 http://www.ocdhotline.com/2012.04.01_arch.html#1334466763056 Sun, 15 Apr 2012 05:21:03 GMT NOMOPHOBIA MISNOMER: DISGUISES 3 ILLNESSES, not a joke http://www.ocdhotline.com/2012.04.01_arch.html#1334013088928 http://www.ocdhotline.com/2012.04.01_arch.html#1334013088928 Sun, 15 Apr 2012 05:22:31 GMT Nomophobia is the new Agoraphobia http://www.ocdhotline.com/2012.04.01_arch.html#1333508996125 http://www.ocdhotline.com/2012.04.01_arch.html#1333508996125 Wed, 04 Apr 2012 03:09:56 GMT Valentines Day and OCD: Part 2 http://www.ocdhotline.com/2012.02.01_arch.html#1329102085117 http://www.ocdhotline.com/2012.02.01_arch.html#1329102085117 Sun, 15 Apr 2012 05:23:00 GMT Valentines and Relationship OCD http://www.ocdhotline.com/2012.02.01_arch.html#1328132479730 http://www.ocdhotline.com/2012.02.01_arch.html#1328132479730 Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:41:19 GMT Holiday-A-Phobia Test: Can you diagnose and help holiday guests? There is no better time than the holidays and New Years, when we have extended time together, to help a friend or relative with an undiagnosed anxiety disorder.  You can easily diagnose which guests at your holiday gathering have the following conditions. Social phobia:  How many invitees never show up or leave early, avoid eye contact or give one word answers?  Social phobia is not just for loners and introverts.  Many extroverted, gregarious, and talkative people who are the life of the party are actually social phobics overcompensating to avoid awkward pauses or being judged.  How often does someone justify their behavior or opinions?  Others avoid self consciousness though alcohol.  The same is true of the approval seeking host, trying too hard to make sure guests are happy. Contamination OCD:  How many hosts compulsively clean, have a spotless home, ask you to take off your shoes, straighten picture frames on the wall, keep putting things back in order, or check candles.  How many guests avoid germs from kisses, and use a napkin when serving from platters and glassware handled by others? How many arrive substantially later than everyone, after compulsively checking their door lock or driving repetitively around the block. Hoarding OCD: How many friends and relatives never invite guests to their home and keep making excuses or always meet elsewhere? Body Dismorphic OCD:  Who is completely covered up in warm climates, has thin tweezed eyebrows, lots of base makeup, keeps squeezing abdominal fat to check if they are fat, has hair that looks as if they are using it to conceal some feature? Scrupulosity: Which guests feel guilty if they don't constantly help? Who repeatedly asks for forgiveness, asks if they hurt your feelings, habitually apologizes while talking, or expresses guilt? Religious OCD: Who is the last to leave church, or repeats blessings. Commitment OCD: Who either avoids resolutions or has to say them with a loophole to avoid making a promise? Agoraphobia and Panic Disorder:  Who makes excuses for not traveling to see you, asks what floor you're on, won't take an elevator, gets anxious, faint, and sweaty in a crowd, checks where all the exits are located or abruptly goes outside http://www.ocdhotline.com/2011.12.01_arch.html#1323837938772 http://www.ocdhotline.com/2011.12.01_arch.html#1323837938772 Wed, 14 Dec 2011 04:52:26 GMT Jane Brody's NY Times article "Time To Get Rid Of All That Stuff", (Science, 11/22/11, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/health/the-hoarder-in-you-a-book-that-can-help-cut-through-the-clutter.html?ref=janeebrody) fails to mention that hoarding is a form of OCD. OCD can take thousands of different forms, not just cleanliness, checking, or neatness. Hoarders feel intense anxiety when discarding:  either vulnerability that they might need the item "just in case", or the equivalent of losing a loved one, betraying a relationship, or forgetting their own past.  Making the public aware of this connection would help many to seek the proper treatment, exposure therapy, which is the only therapy recommended by national mental health organizations. http://www.ocdhotline.com/2011.11.01_arch.html#1322450003130 http://www.ocdhotline.com/2011.11.01_arch.html#1322450003130 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 03:18:38 GMT "Pathological Altruism" (NYTimes, Sci., D1, 10/4/11; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/science/04angier.html?_r=1) is the term coined for people who sacrifice too much for another.  Paradoxically, such extreme sense of over-responsibility not only hurts the giver, but also the recipient.  What the Times fails to say is that this is indeed a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder known as scrupulosity-OCD.  While the Times properly describes the outward behavior, it fails to explain the underlying cause, and hence the treatment for it.  In mild forms, scrupulosity compels people to remove obstacles on the sidewalk that others might trip over, to call repetitively to check up on people's safety, or compulsively give away their savings to charity.  In more extreme forms, the person can take reckless risks to ease another's pain or suffering.  The Times noted examples of animal hoarding to "save" abandoned animals, organ donors, and doctors who take overly heroic measures to help a patient only to make them suffer more.  In all of these, the "altruist" is projecting their own insecurity or suffering onto another, seeing the recipient as more vulnerable than they may be.   Moreover, self-sacrificing parents, taken to an extreme, inadvertently make their children feel less deserving, guilty, and weak.   Acknowledging that this is a common form of OCD, it gives hope of very effective treatment for millions."  Exposure-response-prevention (ERP) is a special type of behavioral therapy which is the only treatment recommended by the International OCD Foundation.   http://www.ocdhotline.com/2011.11.01_arch.html#1322106292109 http://www.ocdhotline.com/2011.11.01_arch.html#1322106292109 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 02:36:05 GMT On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, thousands will remember those who died and plan to visit the memorial. Ironically, thousands of the surviving victims with PTSD will turn off their TV and still can't leave their homes to attend the ceremony.   The New York Times (8/10/11, http://tinyurl.com/3b45rrw) reported on 9/11 victims who still have not obtained the proper treatment. Further, the most popular treatment for flashbacks, antipsychotic drugs, such as Respiridone, have failed to resolve their problems. (See 8/11, www.tinyurl.com/4yaykav.)   PTSD is an extremely treatable disorder. Exposure Therapy, a special cognitive-behavioral technique, has proven highly effective in hundreds of studies. Patients might not need medication indefinitely, if at all. Exposure therapy is very structured, systematically reducing anxiety, avoidance, and flashbacks, the classic symptoms of PTSD.   Moreover, it works for all kinds of PTSD, whether caused by terrorism, warfare, disaster, accidents, or criminal assault and rape. In short, it is tragic that victims and families still suffer completely unnecessarily. http://www.ocdhotline.com/2011.11.01_arch.html#1321840830133 http://www.ocdhotline.com/2011.11.01_arch.html#1321840830133 Mon, 21 Nov 2011 02:00:30 GMT