OCD

Question 1

What is drug therapy

Answer 1

something i want, and need :D
- the most commonly used biological therapy for anxiety disorders is drug therapy
- this therapy assumes that there is a chemical imbalance in the brain
- this can be corrected by drugs (gasppp addictttt) which either increase or decrease the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain

Question 2

What is SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors)

Answer 2

• the standard medical treatment used to tackle the symptoms of OCS are SSRIs
• SSRIs work on increasing certain neurotransmitter in the brain by preventing the re-absorption of serotonin
• by preventing the re-absorption of serotonin, SSRIs effectively increase its levels in the synpase and thus continue to stimulate the post-synaptic neuron

sorry.. what now

Question 3

What did Insel find in 1991

Answer 3

That SSRIs can reduce symptoms of OCD in 50-60% of cases

Question 4

What did Zohar et al find in 1996

Answer 4

That SSRIs can alleviate symptoms in 60% of patients with OCD

Question 5

What other treatments are SSRIs usually paired with

Answer 5

• Drugs are often used alongside cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT)
• The drugs reduce the sufferer’s emotional symptoms, such as anxiety or depression
• This means that the patient can then engage more effectively with CBT
• Some suffered may respond best to CBT alone without the need for medication

Question 6

How can SSRIs become more effective

Answer 6

• Where an SSRI is not effective after three to four months the dose can be increased or it can be combined with other drugs
• Patients respond differently drugs and sometimes alternatives work well for some people and not at all for others

Question 7

What are some alternatives to SSRIs

Answer 7

• Tricyclics - this is an older type of antidepressant that has the same effect on serotonin as SSRIs (clomipramine)
• SNRIs - serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors, second line of defence for patients who do not respond well to SSRIs
• NASSAs - noradrenaline and specific serotonergic antidepressants

Question 8

Give some positive evaluation for drug therapy

Answer 8

Drug therapy is effective at tackling OCD symptoms:
There is clear research to suggest that SSRIs are effective in reducing the severity of OCD symptoms

Question 9

Give some more positive evaluations for drug therapy

Answer 9

Drugs are cost-effective and non-disruptive:
drug treatments are cheap in comparison to psychological treatments and unlike psychotherapy, they are non-disruptive to patients lives

Question 10

Give some negative evaluation for drug therapy

Answer 10

Drugs can have side effects: although the use of drugs is effective for most, a significant minority receive no benefit and/or may suffer side-effects: weight gain, dry mouth, sexual dysfunction and a loss of memory. Coming off a drug is a slow process in which the dosage has to be gradually reduced over a period of six months - risk of relapse

Question 11

Give two more negative evaluations of drug therapy

Answer 11

• Unreliable evidence for drug treatments: if drug companies sponsor the research, they may decide to suppress any results that do not support the drug they are marketing (currently many drug companies do not publish all of their results and may indeed be depressing evidence which suggests the data on the effectiveness of drugs may not be trustworthy)
• Some cases of OCD follow trauma: although OCD is widely believed to be biological in origin, it is also accepted that OCD can have different causes

Question 12

What is trichotillomania

Answer 12

Compulsive hair pulling

Question 13

What is OCD in terms of its categories

Answer 13

Characterised by obsessions and or compulsions

Question 14

What is the hoarding disorder

Answer 14

The compulsive gathering of possessions and the inability to part with anything regardless of its value

Question 15

What is the excoriation disorder

Answer 15

Compulsive skin picking

Question 16

What does the DSM describe as the main symptoms of OCD to be

Answer 16

• recurrent obsessions and compulsions
• recognition by the individual that the obsessions and compulsions are excessive and/or unreasonable
• that the person is distressed or impaired and daily life is disrupted by the obsessions and compulsions

Question 17

What are the behavioural, emotional and cognitive symptoms of OCD

Answer 17

Behavioural: how a person acts which typically leads to the carrying out of repetitive actions to reduce anxiety. This often leads to avoidance of situations that trigger anxiety
Emotional: OCD may feel depressed and/or other negative emotions; guilt and disgust
Cognitive: OCD sufferers are usually plagued with obsessive thoughts, they also tend to develop cognitive strategies and anxiety

Question 18

What is the OCD cycle

Answer 18

Obsessive thought –> anxiety –> compulsive behaviour –> temporary relief
and then the cycle starts again (like my cycle of wanting to cry :D)

Question 19

What are the biological assumptions for OCD

Answer 19

• OCD has been explained in a number of ways but the biological approach offers particularly useful suggestions as to how it is caused
• It has been proposed that there is a genetic component to OCD which predisposes some individuals to the illness
• The genetic explanation suggests that whether a person develops OCD is at least party due to their genes; this may explain why patients often have other family members with OCD

Question 20

What did Billet et al and Bellodi et al say about genetics and OCD

Answer 20

They claim that genetic factors play a role in the disorder. Using evidence from twin studies and family studies they showed that close relatives are more likely to have the disorder than more distant relatives

Question 21

What did Mckeon and Murray say about genetics and OCD

Answer 21

Patients with OCD are more likely to have first degree relatives who suffer from anxiety disorders

Question 22

What did Lewis and Pails et al say about genetics and OCD

Answer 22

There is a higher percentage of OCD sufferers in relatives of patients with OCD than in the control group without OCD

Question 23

What are some genetic explanations for OCD
think of bert and gert, brother and sister with ocd

Answer 23

• Candidate genes are ones which through research have been implicated in the development of OCD
• A possible candidate gene is the SERT gene which is involved in regulating serotonin, a neurotransmitter which facilitates message transfer across synapses
• Another possible candidate gene is the COMT gene - this regulates the production of dopamine
• Dopamine effects motivation and drive

Question 24

What is the diathesis-stress model

Answer 24

It suggests that people gain a vulnerability towards OCD through genes but an environmental stressor is also required. This could be a stressful event for example a bereavement

Question 25

What does polygenic mean and how does it tie into OCD

Answer 25

Polygenic means that its development is not determined by a single gene but a few (maybe as many as 230 genes) - this means that there is little predictive power from this explanation

Question 26

Give some positive evaluation for genetic explanations of OCD

Answer 26

There is evidence to suggest there is a genetic component to the disorder; one of the best sources of evidence for the importance of genes is twin studies

Question 27

Give some negative evaluation for genetic explanations of OCD

Answer 27

- Family studies could also be used to explain environmental influences - Close relatives of OCD suffers may have observed and imitated the behaviour - It is difficult to untangle the effects of environment and genetic factors

Question 28

Give some positive evaluation of candidate genes

Answer 28

Candidate genes are ones which through research have been implicated in the development of OCD

Question 29

Give some negative evaluation of candidiate genes

Answer 29

- There are too many genes involved - Psychologists have not been successful at pinning down all the genes involved - Each genetic variation only increases the risk of OCD by a fraction

Question 30

Give some positive evaluation of the diathesis stress model

Answer 30

Individuals may gain a vulnerability towards OCD through genes that is then triggered by an environmental stressor

Question 31

Give some negative evaluation of the diathesis stress model

Answer 31

Cromer found that over half the OCD patients in their sample had a traumatic event in the past, and that OCD was more severe in those with more than one trauma

Question 32

What is the reductionist approach and how does it tie into OCD

Answer 32

- Due to the biological approach not taking into consideration other approaches in psychology, it is reductionist - There is some evidence of genetics for OCD but it is not the complete picture; for symptoms and causes - This means that it may be more productive to focus on environmental causes as it seems that not all OCD is entirely genetic in origin

Question 33

What are neural explanations

Answer 33

How the genes associated with OCD are likely to affect the levels of key neurotransmitters as well as structures of the brain

Question 34

What are neural explanations of OCD to do with how the basal ganglia acts

Answer 34

- Researchers have implicated a part of the brain called the basal ganglia which is responsible for innate psychomotor functions - Rapoport and Wise (2010) proposed the hypersensitivity of the basal ganglia gives a rise to the repetitive motor behaviours seen in OCD, for example repetitive washing/cleaming and checking

Question 35

What is another area of the brain believed to be involved in OCD

Answer 35

The orbitofrontal cortext and the thalamus The thalamus is brain area whose functions include cleaning, checking and other safety behaviours

Question 36

Give some positive evaluation of neurotransmitters

Answer 36

Allows medication to be developed which helps sufferers

Question 37

What is some negative evaluation of neurotransmitters

Answer 37

- Drugs are not completely effective - Just because administering SSRIs decreases OCD symptoms doesn't mean that this was the cause in the first place - There is time delay between taking drugs to target the condition and any improvements being made and yet the chemical imbalance is addressed in hours

Question 38

Give some positive evaluation of the areas of the brain

Answer 38

- Advances in tech have allowed researcheers to investigate specific areas of the brain more accurately and OCD sufferers do seem to have excessive activity in the orbital frontal cortex - Cleaning and checking behaviours are "hard-wired" in the thalamus

Question 39

Give some negative evaluation of areas of the brain

Answer 39

- The repetitive acts (compulsions) may be explained by the structural abnormality of the basal ganglia but not necessarily the obsessional thoughts - There are inconsistencies found in the research as no system has been found that always plays a role in OCD - These neural changes could be as a result of suffering from the disorder, not necessarily the cause of it