Explain the diagnostic criteria for your assigned personality disorder.
Explain the evidenced-based psychotherapy and psychopharmacologic treatment for your assigned personality disorder.
Describe clinical features from a client that led you to believe this client had this disorder. Align the clinical features with the DSM-5 criteria.
Support your rationale with references to the Learning Resources or other academic resources. Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder Essay Paper
Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
Diagnostic Criteria for OCD
Presence of compulsions, obsessions or the two:
Obsessions are the:
- Frequent and persistent impulses, images, thoughts and urges that an individual experiences when disturbed, as disturbing and undesirable and results in significant anxiety and distress
- The individual tries to ignore or subdue such impulses, images, thoughts and urges or tries to defuse them using some action or thoughts (Sachs & Erfurth, 2018).
Compulsions refer to:
- Repetitive behaviors such as rechecking, hand washing, arranging things or mental actions such as praying silently, or talking to self while responding to an obsession or in accordance with the procedures that should be applied firmly
- The mental actions and behaviors aim to prevent or reduce distress or prevent some frightful incident or situation. Nonetheless, the mental actions or behaviors practically cannot defuse or prevent the intended harm or the actions and behaviors are clearly excessive (Sachs & Erfurth, 2018).
Psychotherapy and Psychopharmacologic Treatment for OCD
Fluvoxamine: Fluvoxamine is the psychopharmacologic treatment choice for OCD. Fluvoxamine is an SSRI that hinders reuptake of serotonin within the brain neurons at the presynaptic neuronal membrane (Pittenger & Bloch, 2014). This elevates the levels of serotonin in the synaptic cleft, lengthens serotonergic transmission, and also reduces serotonin turnover and hence leads to an anti-obsessive compulsive effect. Studies have shown that fluvoxamine is effective in managing the obsessive-compulsive disorder. A study performed by Casale et al (2018) for more than six to twelve weeks indicated that the medication was effective in improving symptoms of OCD.
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Clomipramine: Clomipramine is FDA approved for the treatment of OCD and has been shown to be effective in improving OCD symptoms. Clomipramine is a very strong inhibitor of serotonin reuptake and hence it increases levels of serotonin within the brain and as a result improves OCD symptoms (Pittenger & Bloch, 2014).
Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT): CBT is the psychotherapy choice for treatment of OCD. CBT assists individuals with OCD to explore and understand substitute means of thinking and countering their beliefs using behavioral exercises. CBT utilizes cognitive therapy and behavioral therapy where the first technique looks at how an individual thinks while behavioral therapy focuses on the behavior (O’Neill & Feusner, 2015). The basis of CBT is that an individual’s thoughts, actions, as well as feels are connected. Therefore, CBT enables an individual to have the required skills to identify and challenger the thinking patterns that lead to anxiety, distress and eventually cause obsessive and compulsive behaviors (O’Neill & Feusner, 2015). A study performed by Moody et al (2017) indicated that CBT increases functional and prefrontal connectivity and hence this helps individuals with PCD to resist compulsions and acquire more adaptive behaviors and thought patterns. Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder Essay Paper
Clinical Features indicating OCD for the Client
The client reported excessive checking. She spends hours rechecking her work to ensure everything is perfect. At times she is not able to complete her work activities because she spends most of her time rechecking her reports. While at home, she has checking rituals where she has to confirm that the electrical devices are off for the fear of fiery explosions and rechecking whether the door is locked for fear of leaving them open. These rituals consume numerous hours and this makes her late for work because she barely has enough time to sleep. According to the DSM-5 criteria, the client has the obsessive-compulsive disorder as characterized by her obsession with rechecking in order to prevent fearful incidents. Obsessions and compulsive behaviors have interfered with the client’s daily activities (Sachs & Erfurth, 2018).
References
Casale D, Sorice S, Simmaco M, Ferracuti S, Lamis D, Sani G, & Pompili M. (2018). Psychopharmacological treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Curr Neuropharmacology. 1(13).
Moody T, Morfini F, Cheng G, Sheen C, Neill O & Feusner D. (2017). Mechanisms of cognitive-behavioral therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder involve robust and extensive increases in brain network connectivity. Transl Psychiatry. 7(9), e1230.
O’Neill J & Feusner J. (2015). Cognitive-behavioral therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder: access to treatment, prediction of long-term outcome with neuroimaging. Psychol Res Behav Manag. 1(8), 211–223.
Pittenger C & Bloch M. (2014). Pharmacological treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Psychiatr Clin North Am. 37(3), 375–391.
Sachs G & Erfurth A. (2018). Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders: From the Biological Basis to a Rational Pharmacological Treatment. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol. 21(1), 59–62. Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder Essay Paper