weaknesses of bio treatments

• Side effects – SSRI’s although it is effective patients experience mild side effects like indigestion whilst others may experience more serious side effect such as hallucinations, erection problems and raised blood pressure. – BZ’s are renowned for being highly addictive and can also cause increased aggression and long time memory impairments due to this BZ’s are only recommended as a short term treatment only for up to four weeks according to Ashton.
• Treating symptoms not the cause – although SSRI’s work by increasing the levels of serotonin in the brain which reduces anxiety and alleviates the symptoms of OCD it does not treat the underlying cause of OCD. Furthermore, once a patient stops taking the drug they are prone torelapse. Koran suggests that psychological treatments such as CBT may be more effective long-term solution to provide a lasting treatment and a potential cure.
• One limitation of the biological treatments of OCD is they treat the symptoms not the cause. EVIDENCE. This therefore conveys that the treatments are effective in the short term however once they have stopped taking the drug the symptoms will return highlighting that the drugs have no long term benefits conveying that despite therapy being longer to more expensive they actually treat the cause and not only prevent the symptoms. This therefore conveys one limitation of the biological treatment of OCD being that it does not treat the actual cause.