Lori Riddle-Walker MFT, Treating OCD and Related Disorders, San Diego

Generalized Anxiety Disorder is characterized by excessive worry, but such worries are distinguished from obsessions by the fact that the person experiences them as excessive concerns about real-life circumstances.

Although Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder have similar names, the clinical manifestations of these disorders are quite different. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder is not characterized by the presence of obsessions or compulsions and instead involves a pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and control and must begin by early adulthood. If an individual manifests symptoms of both Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, both diagnoses can be given.

OCD Spectrum Disorders are disorders that share some common characteristics with OCD. These can include hoarding, hypochondrasis, other health anxieties, body dysmorphic disorder, Tourette’s syndrome, tic disorders, generalized anxiety disorder, and some impulse control disorders such as trichotillomania or compulsive skin picking.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder is the preoccupation with an imagined or exaggerated defect in physical appearance.

Hypochondriasis is the preoccupation with the fear of having, or the idea that one has, a serious disease based on the person’s misinterpretation of bodily symptoms or bodily functions. Medical investigation and reassurance do not relieve these ideas.

Kleptomania is characterized by the recurrent failure to resist impulses to steal objects not needed for personal use or monetary value. Just before the theft, the patient experiences increasing tension. At the time of theft, the patient feels gratification, pleasure or relief. These thefts are not committed out of anger or revenge, nor in response to delusions or hallucinations.

Tourette’s Disorder is a rare disorder characterized by repetitive muscle movements and vocal outbursts. At some time during the illness, though not necessarily at the same time, the sufferer has had at least one vocal tic (a tic is a motor movement or vocalization that is nonrhythmic, rapid, repeated, stereotyped and sudden) and multiple motor tics for longer than one year. These tics occur many times each day, nearly every day or at intervals.

Trichotillomania is characterized by recurrent pulling out of one’s hair for pleasure, gratification, or relief of tension that results in noticeable hair loss. Hair may be pulled from any location, including scalp, eyelashes and eyebrows. Recurrent pulling out of one’s hair results in noticeable hair loss. The sufferer experiences an increasing sense of tension immediately before pulling out the hair or when attempting to resist the behavior. Pleasure, gratification, or relief is experienced when pulling out the hair.