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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Case Study

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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
In my case history, Laura and Marna, are both suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder. Although they share identical feelings and motivations, the two friends exhibit very different symptoms considering they obsess over different issues resulting in entirely dissimilar compulsive behaviors. Both women having dealt with OCD their entire lives and remember even as a child having certain compulsions. Marna expresses her serious problems with selecting an outfit to wear and Laura recalls as a teenager spending up to an hour simply applying mascara. Laura and Marna both acknowledge a significant history of illness in their families, and Marna reveals that she went through abuse as a child believing this led to her …show more content…

Laura will spend hours reading tags on clothes and rearranging paperwork, Marna has obsessive thoughts about keeping things orderly. Although both women are aware of the disorder they obtain, and know how irrational their compulsions are, they feel powerless to overcome them. OCD has effected both women’s’ work and personal lives. Obsessive compulsive disorder comes in to play when worries, doubts, and simple rituals get out of control and begin to dominate lives. A person with OCD feels a great deal of anxiety resulting from obsessions and often perform ritualized behaviors in hopes to make them go away. These “rituals” are not done to receive pleasure, but to reduce anxiety. Some researchers claim that OCD can run in families, and although the tendency to have compulsive thoughts may be heritable, the specific thoughts and actions are not. It is strongly suggested that this disorder is caused by a neurological dysfunction in an area of the brain that controls primitive functions, leaving people who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder with a difficulty diminishing compulsions sent to the thalamus in their

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