Dr. Manuel Alfonso Simón is a psychiatrist and belongs to Top Doctors, the select circle of top doctors in Spain. As an expert in obsessive compulsive disorder, he will explain the details of its treatment.
What is obsessive compulsive disorder and why does it appear?
The obsessive compulsive disorder also called OCD, as its name suggests, is characterized by obsessive thinking with imperious ideas, reiterated, that cannot be overcome and that have to be repeated over and over again and in the behavioral side obsessive rituals, compulsive rituals in which you have to check over and over again for example that you have closed the door, that you have not dropped anything, wash your hands, usually a certain number of times. In this type of disorder, reason is of no use, the patient is not psychotic, but neurotic, and understands that it is useless, but nevertheless cannot overcome it.
Why does it appear? OCD is a biological disorder, generally hereditary. There are 20% of hereditary cases that have a similar complete clinical picture and to a much lesser extent a much higher percentage. It is a biological disorder and therefore pharmacological treatment is necessary and psychotherapeutic treatment is necessary.
Is psychotherapy effective?
Yes, it is. Although as we have said it is a biological disorder and therefore pharmacology is necessary. Yes it is important that the sufferer learns to manage his situation and benefits from a series of strategies, not a psychological or psychotherapeutic treatment in terms of understanding but to manage the problem and it is also very useful to manage it with a family treatment because not only the sufferer is in a situation where he does not know how to deal with the problem, but the family often suffers from not knowing what to do, how to manage and how to address the problem.
Is medication always necessary?
Yes, medication is always necessary because we have already mentioned that it is a biological disorder and therefore if it does not overcome, if it does not solve this biological substrate, the real cause, it is impossible to solve the problem no matter how effective psychotherapy is. It is also important that this treatment takes place the sooner the better, if the disease debuts on average between 14 and 16 years of age and we start treatment at 16 years of age, it will be much better than if we start at 26 years of age.