Many clinicians will treat patients who struggle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder throughout their career. It can take as long as 14 to 17 years for people with OCD to get properly diagnosed, which means they aren’t receiving treatment in a timely fashion and their functioning at work and in relationships suffers for a long time. When patients get properly diagnosed, it opens the door to receiving appropriate treatment, alleviating symptoms, and improving functioning. Getting the correct treatment is critical, because getting the wrong treatment can cause the condition to worsen. For providers who don’t treat Obsessive Compulsive Disorder regularly, the following symptoms might come to mind when thinking of OCD: fear of contamination, counting compulsions, and checking compulsions. Many providers don’t know about sexual orientation obsessions, self-harm obsessions, aggressive obsessions, relationship obsessions, and pedophilic obsessions. Therefore, they might not think of a diagnosis of OCD if a patient mentions one of these symptoms. This brief course is meant to introduce clinicians to the wide range of obsessions and compulsions that can exist as part of an OCD diagnosis. The hope is that by spreading the word about the ways OCD can manifest, fewer patients with OCD will go misdiagnosed or undiagnosed and more patients can be spared from years of suffering and disability. Specific learning objectives include:
Identify 5 lesser-known subtypes of OCD
Describe questions to ask to properly distinguish OCD from another disorder
Discuss good treatment strategies for these subtypes.
