Animal Planet Sheds Light on Animal Hoarding in New Series

While recent breakthrough shows such as Hoarders on A&E and Hoarding: Buried Alive on TLC have made the obsessive-compulsive behavior of hoarding gain national attention, Animal Planet focuses the lens on the problem even further in a new television series.

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Eating Disorders and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Eating disorders plague about 0.9 percent of women and 0.3 percent of men over a lifetime period in the United States. Those who are diagnosed with an eating disorder are given a designation of one of three diagnoses provided by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition.

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Obsessive Compulsive Disorders Bear Heavy Costs and Often Go Undiagnosed

The strange or quirky behaviors people with obsessive compulsive disorder exhibit may seem like an exaggeration of normal processes, but these behaviors are part of a life-debilitating condition and recognized as an anxiety disorder.

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Study Finds that a Single Gene is Responsible for OCD-Like Behavior in Mice

Researchers at the Ansary Stem Cell Institute and the Department of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College discovered that mice missing a single gene developed repetitive obsessive-compulsive-like behaviors. The genetically altered mice, which behaved much like people with a certain type of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), could help scientists design new therapies for this debilitating condition. The researchers made this serendipitous discovery while looking at the role of a gene, called Slitrk5, which they had earlier linked to blood stem cells and vascular cells.

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Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: On-Screen and Off

If you’ve ever watched the show “Monk” starring Tony Shalhoub, you know it’s about a detective who has obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). The seven-year-old series was created by David Hoberman, who struggled with OCD as a teenager. According to a poll taken by the Obsessive Compulsion Foundation, people with OCD don’t mind the emphasis on their disease. In fact, OCD sufferer Patricia Perkins told HealthyPlace.com, “That’s my kind of humor.”

Co-executive producer Fern Field told Palm Springs’ Desert Sun that Shalhoub actually spent a few days with a doctor whose specialty is treating patients with OCD. “The doctor said within a couple of hours he thought he had a new patient because Tony was so good at it,” she said.

She also explained, “‘Monk’ was never a show about someone with OCD who happened to be a detective. It’s about a detective who happens to have OCD. I’ve done a lot of work with the disability community and that’s always been very, very important. Your disability is not who you are. Your disability is something you just happen to have. And, as we get older, we’re all going to have some kind of disability.”

Now another television series is concentrating on OCD cases. A&E’s “Obsessed” is a reality show that documents the treatment of people with anxiety disorders, including OCD, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and hoarding.

The Obsessive Compulsion Foundation says OCD affects one in 50 adults in the United States, and that twice that many have had it at some point in their lives. “Obsessed” says that anxiety disorders are “the world’s most common mental illness.” But John Tsilimparis, a marriage and family therapist who runs and outpatient program in cognitive behavioral therapy at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, said it’s only been taken seriously as a medical issue for about 20 years.

Tsilimparis said it’s similar to how alcoholism was considered a joke when Otis the drunk was featured on the Andy Griffith show in the 1960s. “Addiction and OCD have similar qualities,” he told the Desert Sun. “Otis drinks or somebody does drugs for the same reason somebody overcleans. Most people with OCD will say, ‘I know what I do is unreasonable, I know what I do seems crazy, but I can’t stop doing it.’ The addict who’s a chronic relapser does the same thing.

“It might be a joke to somebody who has no experience with it. You might say, ‘God, just stop cleaning.’ Well, if it was that easy for them, they would have done it a long time ago,” he said.

“Obsessive compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder that’s comprised of obsession as well as compulsion,” Tsilimparis said. “They’re time consuming, they’re distracting, and they have to interfere with normal daily living routines. In other words, the difference between somebody with OCD and somebody who just suffers from regular anxiety is they spend a lot of time dealing with these compulsions.”

He continued, “The difference between obsessions and compulsions are, obsessions are basically these persistent impulses—these ideas, images, lists of thoughts—that are often very, very disturbing and anxiety provoking. The compulsions are these repetitive physical acts that are performed in response to the obsession in hopes of mitigating anxiety. You have to have both of those components to distinguish somebody who has free-floating anxiety (from) OCD.”

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Parents who Accommodate OCD Behaviors May Worsen the Condition

A recent study shows that parents who accommodate obsessive-compulsive behavior in their children may actually be triggering more serious symptoms—but cognitive behavioral therapy may help in reversing the symptoms.

In the study conducted by researchers at the University of Florida, 49 children ages 6 to 18 with OCD took part in 14 sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy with their parents, where emphasis was placed on helping parents reduce “family accommodation,” or trying to soothe their child’s anxiety by offering comfort, giving the child objects, or even doing tasks for them like homework.

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Scrupulosity: OCD Misunderstood

By Susan J. Campbell

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is nothing new, but a misunderstood form of OCD may very well be. Some of the millions of people suffering from OCD actually have scrupulosity, a form of OCD that exhibits an excessive concern with sin that goes well beyond the norm for the average individual’s religious beliefs. According to David Wall, Ph.D, director of psychological services at Remuda Ranch, individuals who suffer from scrupulosity have intrusive obsessions about sin and/or blasphemy that are symptoms of their OCD.

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