Anxiety disorders are a group of mental disorders characterized by significant and uncontrollable feelings of anxiety and fear such that a person's social, occupational, and personal functions are significantly impaired. Anxiety may cause physical and cognitive symptoms, such as restlessness, irritability, easy fatigue, difficulty concentrating, increased heart rate, chest pain, abdominal pain, and a variety of other symptoms that may vary based on the individual.
Obsessive–compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) is a cluster C personality disorder marked by a spectrum of obsessions with rules, lists, schedules, and order, among other things. Symptoms are usually present by the time a person reaches adulthood, and are visible in a variety of situations. The cause of OCPD is thought to involve a combination of genetic and environmental factors, namely problems with attachment.
Hoarding disorder (HD) or Plyushkin's disorder, is a mental disorder characterised by persistent difficulty in parting with possessions and engaging in excessive acquisition of items that are not needed or for which no space is available. This results in severely cluttered living spaces, distress, and impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Excessive acquisition is characterized by repetitive urges or behaviours related to amassing or buying property. Difficulty discarding possessions is characterized by a perceived need to save items and distress associated with discarding them. Accumulation of possessions results in living spaces becoming cluttered to the point that their use or safety is compromised. It is recognised by the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5).
Hoarding is the act of engaging in excessive acquisition of items that are not needed or for which no space is available.
Animal hoarding, sometimes called Noah syndrome, is keeping a higher-than-usual number of animals as domestic pets without the ability to properly house or care for them, while at the same time denying this inability. Compulsive hoarding can be characterized as a symptom of a mental disorder rather than deliberate cruelty towards animals. Hoarders are deeply attached to their pets and find it extremely difficult to let the pets go. They typically cannot comprehend that they are harming their pets by failing to provide them with proper care. Hoarders tend to believe that they provide the right amount of care for them. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals provides a "Hoarding Prevention Team", which works with hoarders to help them attain a manageable and healthy number of pets.
The Yale–Brown Obsessive–Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) is a test to rate the severity of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms.
Sexual obsessions are persistent and unrelenting thoughts about sexual activity. In the context of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), these are extremely common, and can become extremely debilitating, making the person ashamed of the symptoms and reluctant to seek help. A preoccupation with sexual matters, however, does not only occur as a symptom of OCD, they may be enjoyable in other contexts.
Compulsive behavior is defined as performing an action persistently and repetitively. Compulsive behaviors could be an attempt to make obsessions go away. Compulsive behaviors are a need to reduce apprehension caused by internal feelings a person wants to abstain from or control. A major cause of compulsive behavior is said to be obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). "The main idea of compulsive behavior is that the likely excessive activity is not connected to the purpose to which it appears directed." There are many different types of compulsive behaviors including shopping, hoarding, eating, gambling, trichotillomania and picking skin, itching, checking, counting, washing, sex, and more. Also, there are cultural examples of compulsive behavior.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), is the 2013 update to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the taxonomic and diagnostic tool published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). In 2022, a revised version (DSM-5-TR) was published. In the United States, the DSM serves as the principal authority for psychiatric diagnoses. Treatment recommendations, as well as payment by health care providers, are often determined by DSM classifications, so the appearance of a new version has practical importance. However, not all providers rely on the DSM-5 for planning treatment as the ICD's mental disorder diagnoses are used around the world and scientific studies often measure changes in symptom scale scores rather than changes in DSM-5 criteria to determine the real-world effects of mental health interventions. The DSM-5 is the only DSM to use an Arabic numeral instead of a Roman numeral in its title, as well as the only living document version of a DSM.
Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental disorder in which an individual has intrusive thoughts and feels the need to perform certain routines (compulsions) repeatedly to relieve the distress caused by the obsession, to the extent where it impairs general function.
Hoarding: Buried Alive is an American documentary television series that premiered on TLC on March 14, 2010. The show follows hoarders through their life experiences and helps them learn to manage their illness.
Just Checking by Emily Colas is an account of her experience with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Divided into four sections, Colas provides snapshots of her life in a journal like manner. The text conveys her emotions regarding the disease throughout her entire life including her childhood and her role as a mother herself.
Anger Management is an American television multi-camera sitcom created by Bruce Helford that premiered on FX on June 28, 2012. The series is loosely based on the 2003 film of the same title and stars Charlie Sheen in a variation of the Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson film. The series received 5.74 million viewers in its debut, breaking the record as the most-watched sitcom premiere in US cable television history. On November 7, 2014, FX announced that the series would end after its 100th episode, which aired on December 22, 2014.
David F. Tolin is an American clinical psychologist.
The University of Florida Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder Program is a treatment and research clinic in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Florida. The clinic is located in Gainesville, Florida.
Geralin Thomas is an American organizing consultant best known for her appearances on the television show Hoarders. She is the proprietor of the company Metropolitan Organizing, based in Cary, North Carolina.
Jonathan Stuart Abramowitz is an American clinical psychologist and Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). He is an expert on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety disorders whose work is highly cited. He maintains a research lab and currently serves as the Director of the UNC-CH Clinical Psychology PhD Program. Abramowitz approaches the understanding and treatment of psychological problems from a cognitive-behavioral perspective.
The Dimensional Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (DOCS) is a 20-item self-report instrument that assesses the severity of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) symptoms along four empirically supported theme-based dimensions: (a) contamination, (b) responsibility for harm and mistakes, (c) incompleteness/symmetry, and (d) unacceptable (taboo) thoughts. The scale was developed in 2010 by a team of experts on OCD led by Jonathan Abramowitz, PhD to improve upon existing OCD measures and advance the assessment and understanding of OCD. The DOCS contains four subscales that have been shown to have good reliability, validity, diagnostic sensitivity, and sensitivity to treatment effects in a variety of settings cross-culturally and in different languages. As such, the DOCS meets the needs of clinicians and researchers who wish to measure current OCD symptoms or assess changes in symptoms over time.
Carolyn I. Rodriguez is a Puerto Rican psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and clinical researcher developing treatments for obsessive compulsive disorder as well as mapping circuit dysfunction in the human brain. Rodriguez holds appointments in both clinical and academic departments at Stanford University. Rodriguez is a Clinical Lab Director at the Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging, an associate professor and Associate Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and a Director of several specialized translational research programs.
