|
Knowing the history about a certain issue can help build a foundation and focus an individual’s perspective. When I first discovered I was suffering from OCD, I had no idea what Obsessive Compulsive Disorder was—let alone the history of it. For the very reason that many individuals STILL do not know as much information on OCD as other mental disorders, I am here to bring some interesting facts about the history of OCD to you! |
ITEM:
Not until the last 20 years have scientists and doctors known a lot about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
|
BRITTNEY'S RESPONSE:
I find this hard to believe, considering thousands and thousands of people have had this throughout the ages. Denial and embarrassment must have been the same for those people as it is for individuals in today society. I also find it to be kind of alarming that individuals and doctors did not really start to study it until the recent past decades. |
ITEM:
In 1660 a man by the name of Jeremy Taylor, a Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland—referred to obsessional doubting when he wrote of "scruples" (which is where he is talking about doubt and worrying).
|
BRITTNEY'S RESPONSE:
Think about this…individuals were still afraid to admit that they had this so called “problem” hundreds of years ago. I have talked to so many individuals who have “problems” and one of the first places they say they had self-actualization is through their journal or diary. |
ITEM:
In 1838 a psychiatric textbook, Esquirol (1772-1840) described OCD as a form of monomania, or partial insanity. He fluctuated between attributing OCD to disordered intellect and disordered will. After French psychiatrists abandoned the concept of monomania in the 1850s, they attempted to understand obsessions and compulsions within various broad nosological categories.
Freud gradually evolved a conceptualization of OCD that influenced and then drew upon his ideas of mental structure, mental energies, and defense mechanisms. In Freud's view, the patient's mind responded maladaptive to conflicts between unacceptable, unconscious sexual or aggressive id impulses and the demands of conscience and reality.
|
BRITTNEY'S RESPONSE:
Through these statements, we know that scientists and doctors knew that there was something that existed—something that was causing pain and aguish to many individuals. I feel that because people are finally speaking out—the attention to the mental disorder OCD is not becoming serious.
|
Reference: http://ocd.stanford.edu/treatment/history.html
You may be obsessed with germs or dirt, so you wash your hands over and over. You may be filled with doubt and feel the need to check things repeatedly. You may have frequent thoughts of violence, and fear that you will harm people close to you. You may spend long periods touching things or counting; you may be pre-occupied by order or symmetry; you may have persistent thoughts of performing sexual acts that are repugnant to you; or you may be troubled by thoughts that are against your religious beliefs...
