OCD: What are the Clinical Characteristics?

OCD (or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), is mainly characterised by anxiety, which can arise from both obsessions, and compulsions. This disorder is extremely common in the young adult stage of life. OCD can be defined through the following characteristics:

Obsessions - these create anxiety

• These are recurrent, intrusive thoughts or impulses that are perceived as inappropriate or forbidden. Common obsessional theme include ideas (for example, everywhere I go there will be germs), doubts (for example, the worry that something important has been overlooked), impulses (for example, shouting at obscenities), or images (for example, fleeting inappropriate images).

• These thoughts, impulses, or images are not simply excessive worries regarding everyday problems, rather they are seen as completely uncontrollable, which in turn causes severe anxiety.

• A person with OCD recognises that the obsessional thoughts or impulses are a product of his or her own mind (rather than 'thought insertion' as is typical of schizophrenia). A person with OCD attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts, impulses, or images, or to neutralise them with some other thought or action.

Compulsions - these are a response in order to reduce the anxiety created by the obsession

• Compulsions are repetitive behaviours, including both overt behaviours, such as excessive hand washing or checking, and mental acts, such as counting or praying. 

• The compulsive behaviour or mental acts either are not connected in a realistic way with what they are designed to neutralise, or prevent or are clearly excessive.

Further Criteria

• At some point during the course of the disorder, the person does recognise that the obsessions or compulsions are excessive or unreasonable. This does not apply to children. The obsession and/or compulsions cause marked distress, are time consuming (take more than one hour a day) and/or significantly interfere with the person's normal routine, occupational (or academic) functioning, or usual social activities or relationship. No other mental disorder is present and the disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (for example, a medication) or a general medical condition.

I hope you enjoyed, and thank you for taking your time to read :)

Depression: What are the Clinical Characteristics?

The diagnosis of depression (or major depressive disorder) requires the presence of five of the following symptoms (including either depressed mood or loss of interest and pleasure). The symptoms must also cause clinically significant distress or impairment in general functioning and not be better accounted for by bereavement. For a diagnosis of depression, these symptoms should be present all or most of the time, and should persist for longer than 2 weeks.

• Sad, depressed mood: This is indicated by either subjective reporting (such as feeling sad or feeling empty) or observations made by others (for example, if the person is often crying).

• Loss of interest and pleasure in usual activities: This is indicated by either subjective accounts, or observations made by other people.

• Difficulty in sleeping: This is referred to commonly as insomnia , and it is common in depressed people that they have a desire to sleep all of the time. This is referred to as hypersomnia.

• Shift in activity level, becoming either lethargic or agitated: This is observable by other people, and is not merely subjective feelings of restlessness.

• Poor appetite and weight loss, or increased appetite and weight gain: Significant weight loss can occur when not dieting, and also a significant decrease (or increase) of appetite.

• Loss of energy and great fatigue

• Negative self-concept, feelings of worthlessness and guilt: This is indicated by an excessive or inappropriate guilt, which may or may not be delusional.

• Difficulty in concentrating: This includes things such as slowed down thinking, or perhaps indecisiveness.

• Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide: There is research to suggest that major depressive disorders account for about 20-35% of all deaths by suicide. This research was conducted by Angst et al. in 1995.

I hope this has been of interest, and thank you for taking your time to read :)

Schizophrenia: What are the Clinical Characteristics?

Schizophrenia can be defined as having both positive, and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms are those that appear to reflect an excess or distortion of normal functions. Negative symptoms are those that appear to reflect a loss of normal functions. These often persist during periods of low (or possibly even absent) symptoms. There are a number of positive and negative symptoms:

Positive Symptoms:

• Delusions: These are bizarre beliefs that seem to be real to the schizophrenic, but they are not actually real. Sometimes these delusions can be paranoid in nature. It is possible that delusions also involve inflated beliefs about the person's power and importance.

• Experiences of control: This is where the person may believe they are under the control of an alien force that has invaded their mind and/or body.

• Hallucinations: These are bizarre, unreal perceptions of the environment that are more commonly auditory, but can also be visual, olfactory, or tactile. Auditory hallucinations include hearing voices, whereas visual hallucinations include seeing objects, lights or faces. In addition, olfactory hallucinations are to do with scent, and being able to smell things that are not in reality, whereas tactile hallucinations are to do with touch, and being able to feel things that are not there, such as bugs crawling on the skin.

Negative Symptoms:

• Affective flattening: These are a reduction in the range and intensity of emotional expression, including facial expression, voice tone, eye contact and body language.

• Alogia: These are poverties of speech, characterised by the lessening of speech fluency and productivity. This is thought to reflect slowing or blocked thoughts.

• Avolition: This is the reduction, or inability to initiate and persist in, goal-directed behaviour (for example, sitting around all day, doing absolutely nothing); it is often mistaken for apparent disinterest.

These are the clinical characteristics of Schizophrenia, and it is claimed that the diagnosis of schizophrenia itself requires at least a one-month duration of two or more positive symptoms of the disorder.

I hope this has been of interest, and thank you for taking your time to read :)