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Breaking the obsession syndrome
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A habit that just refuses to go gets a strange hold over one's life
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DAILY RITUAL Habits die hard
This person, let us call him Thirumeni, chants the Gayatri Mantra several times. He does this thinking that he is not able to attain perfection in intonation and phonetics each time he recites it. This kind of recurrent, persistent thought is called obsession. Obsessions are unwanted, intrusive images or impulses, which are usually regarded, by the individual experiencing them, as repugnant, senseless and unacceptable. Obsessives find it difficult to dismiss them from their minds also. Once an obsession occurs, it is accompanied by feelings of discomfort, often with a blend of anxiety and depression and severe urge on the part of the person to neutralise the obsession and its perceived consequences. Fear of contamination, doubts about locking the main door of the house etc. are all obsessions.
Compulsions are repetitive behaviours or mental acts, like hand washing, counting the numbers, praying etc. and are obsession driven rituals. Compulsive or neutralising behaviours are usually carried out in a stereotyped way or according to idiosyncratically defined rules with the expectation to alleviate anxiety. Neutralising behaviours also include changes in mental activity such as deliberately thinking a different thought in response to an obsessional thought (substitution). Persons also develop avoidance behaviours particularly avoiding situations, which could trigger an obsessional thought.
Obsessive-compulsive phenomena are usually divided into obsessional thought without compulsive behaviours (obsessive ruminations) and obsessions without compulsions (obsessive ritualising). The worshiper of the temple, about whom we talked just a little bit earlier, at the obsessive rumination level broods over improper chanting and this impels him to repeat the mantra several times at the compulsive or neutralising level.
Persons with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are very irritable and the rituals are interpreted according to the flow of lives impinging or their obsessions. OCD persons are often under great stress for their own unwanted, illogical, unproductive, anxiety - arousing, negative thoughts and engage in compulsive, exhausting acts to relieve the feelings of stress. The obsessions and compulsions may become increasingly frequent and dominating the person's life.
Symptoms begin often in adolescence with no gender differences in the prevalence and severity. The disorder occurs earlier in males (6 to 15 years), than in females (20 to 29 years). The lifetime prevalence (approximately 2.3%) is similar in almost all countries.
Some dogs will develop obsessive grooming to the point where the licking causes open wounds. Veterinarians call this animal model of compulsive behaviour, the acral (affecting the extremities) like syndrome.
The treatment of OCD may be neutralising behaviours by purpose fully thinking a different thought (thought substitution), avoiding situations which trigger an obsessional thought (avoidance conditioning), exposing the patient to the feared situation (ET, exposure technique).
Or by preventing the patient to make the response on exposure (response prevention), advising the patient to learn relaxation and fixing at the trance state in the subconscious mind a happy positive thought (subconscious programming), assuming that emotions are experienced as a result of the way in which events are interpreted or appraises and correcting the distorted thinking (cognitive model ) are always to annual OCD.
Dr. C. P. SOMASUNDARAM
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Pondicherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
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