Medication

Many persons tend to use medication as a means of an obsessive compulsive disorder treatment, under the supervision and guidance of a medical practitioner. In most cases, persons are normally prescribed with Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI’s) like Luvox and Prozac. This is because individuals with this condition tend to have low levels of serotonin in their brain, which is thought to be one of the contributing factors to their illness. As a result, these medications work to reduce the individual’s anxiety and improve their mood by increasing the brain’s serotonin level. This method however, does have side effects, and will not completely remove your symptoms; instead, it will only result in approximately 30 – 50% reduction of your symptoms. It is therefore normally recommended that therapy also be taking along with these medications.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is a very effective means of obsessive compulsive disorder treatment. The process is normally carried out in a one on one session with a specialist trained in the particular area, but can also be done in a group setting. The most effective type of psychotherapy is cognitive behavioral therapy; this method aims at changing the way the individual thinks by modifying their behavior. In this method, the patient is exposed gradually to that which causes their obsession or fear, but is however forbidden from engaging in the habitual behavior. As the patient is continually exposed and sees that nothing bad results, they become less and less anxious. This method has a 50-80% success rate.

Self help programs

Self help programs are another option for obsessive compulsive disorder treatment which has proven to be very effective. The best thing about these programs, and probably the main reason for their success is that most of them were developed by persons who themselves have overcome the condition and so have the experience and knowledge to help someone else. These programs are designed to teach persons with the condition to change the way they think, and deal with their symptoms in a very direct but safe way. There have also been sanctioned by experts in the field as being very reliable and effective programs.

Lets take a look at a couple of the options available right now. First off we have medication. Now while you should always seek the advice of your doctor first I don’t believe that medication is the way to go even though they may suggest it as the best route. Medicines aren’t particularly selective when it comes to emotions. We don’t yet fully understand how emotions are created and interact within the brain. Medicines often go under-tested before being released. Therefore the common way a medicine works is like using a tank to smash a block of butter, it gets the job done but it’s overpowered and can often cause damage elsewhere due to factors that weren’t understood or taken into account.

Other obsessive compulsive treatment can be found in the various techniques of the self help industry. I think that most of these are actually a lot better than medicine because the side effects and damage that you might see from medicine you don’t see from these techniques. For the most part if these techniques don’t work nothing changes. The draw backs for these techniques then is that too often they require constant repetition day after day to get them to take hold. They can take more time to get to work than you are saved by not suffering from OCD, which for some people is a huge amount of time. Another problem with them is that a lot of them try to overpower the symptoms you are suffering, they don’t really work on the real underlying issue.

OCD is caused by an over attachment in the primal brain to emotions like fear and anxiety. These emotions are all movement initiators and have nothing to do with thought. This is why people with OCD will do things over and over again, it’s because they can’t actually connect to the part of their brain that thinks “the oven is switched off, next task” or “the door is locked” etc. It’s a constant movement issue.

If you are looking for an effective obsessive compulsive treatment the essence of what you need is a technique that focuses on balancing out the movement part of the brain with the thinking part of the brain. A balance is what most people have in most areas of their life, and indeed even people with OCD aren’t obsessive compulsive about everything, so there is balance there. Once a balance is re-achieved (people aren’t born with OCD it is generated at some point in their lives through an experience with a high emotional attachment) the OCD will naturally disappear, and in more cases than not it will disappear in all the places they experience it. If you achieve proper balance you won’t ever need to repeat the process again and you can go on with your life.

Steve Hyde was a long time sufferer of both OCD and social anxiety. He has tried many techniques to rid himself of both these afflictions. Upon discovering a technique several years ago that completely eliminated both his OCD and social anxiety he has dedicated himself to helping people achieve at least the same levels of change in their own lives. He now runs a one-to-one coaching business helping people who are as dedicated to achieving the life of their dreams as he is.