OCD

• Behavioural


  Compulsions: behaviours performed repeatedly to reduce anxiety; however, any anxiety reduction is only temporary e.g. checking behaviours.

  Avoidance: take or resist actions to avoid being in the presence of objects. situations that trigger obsessions.

  Social impairment: not participating in enjoyable social activities leading to social withdrawal.
• OCD


  Defined by obsessions, which are constant intrusive thoughts that cause high anxiety levels. Compulsions that are the behavioural response, an attempt to deal with the continuous invasive thought processes.
• Emotional


  Anxiety: an uncomfortably high and persistent state of arousal, making it difficult to relax. Anxiety results from the obsession, the constant worst-case-scenario thinking that defines OCD.

  Depression: a consistent and long-lasting sense of sadness. The result of being unable to control the anxiety-causing thoughts.
• Cognitive


  Obsessions: intrusive, irrational and recurrent thoughts that tend to be unpleasant catastrophic thoughts about potential dangers.

  Hypervigilance: A permanent state of alertness where the sufferer is looking for the source of their obsessive thoughts.

  Selective attention: this means the individual is so focused on objects connected to the obsession they cannot focus on other things.