What Are the Symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)? (1:03)
Symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) include intrusive thoughts that are irrational or worrisome, paired with ritualistic behaviors or compulsions that alleviate anxiety. Watch psychiatrist Sue Varma, MD, explain the main symptoms of OCD.
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In obsessive composive disorder people will find that they have intrusive thoughts that are worrisome, that are irrational beliefs and may have to do with cleanliness with organisation sometimes people have certain ritualistic behaviors or compulsions that help decrease the anxiety.
So let's say somebody has fear of germs they maybe washing their hands excessively, and when I mean excessively I am not talking about, once or twice is even an hour I'm talking about several times an hour, throughout the day. So people sometimes end up washing their hands 20-30 times a day.
Their hands might be so dry, scaly even to the point where sometimes if they rub their hands so much they may even braisons from the hands washing. So we are talking about people who really have an excessive fear and this anxiety has taken over in certain behavioral manifestations, and it is irrational, so the hallmark sort of is this irrational fear and certain ritualistic behaviors or compositions as we call it.
Sudeepta Varma, MD, is a board certified psychiatrist at the NYU Langone Medical Center. She was also the founding medical director and attending psychiatrist to a prestigious mental health program at NYU Langone.
