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Howie Mandel Talks About Living With Ocd Essay

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In the YouTube clip “Howie Mandel Talks About Living With OCD”, Howie Mandel showed different types of symptoms for OCD (Mandel, 2009). Mandel would not touch a door handle directly; instead, he used his shirt when opening a door. Mandel said that he does not go near handrails, just like Mandel would not touch the handles directly. Mandel would not eat the food if it were from a buffet, because other people have touched the handles. One of Mandel’s signature move is the fist bomb, however, his signature fist bomb is to avoid touching other peoples palms directly. Another thing was Mandel’s dressing room; his entire make up had to be brand new and organized on his desk to avoid germs. Mandel’s baldhead was a choice, since it felt cleaner to him. When Mandel dropped the anxiety pill on the floor he would not pick it up or take it even though he did not have another pill available – he would rather go without his medicine …show more content…

A dimension to OCD is the fact that the onset in childhood is more common in boys, which is a sociocultural dimension (Sue et al., 2013). Mandel remembers being 6 years old and not wanting to tie his shoelaces because he did not want to get germs onto his hands. Mandel was embarrassed and did not talk about his problems, which led him to a late diagnose of his disorder. If Mandel would have talked about his problems it might have helped him cope with his OCD at a younger age. Another factor is the social dimension: Mandel was an outcast at school and the other children did not get his humor. Mandel was not a normal child and that did not affect his OCD in a good way. A psychological dimension for Mandel’s OCD is his constant battle in his mind about whether or not he took a long enough shower, or if he should wash his hands again, etc. the YouTube clip does not tell anything about Mandel’s biological factors, but there a still sociocultural, psychological and social dimensions to his

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