Getting professional help is the best way to deal with OCD. Treatment may involve psychological treatment, medicine or a combination of both. A person may benefit considerably from behaviour therapy, while another will benefit from medicine. Some sufferers may use both medication and behaviour therapy and others may begin with medication to gain control over their symptoms and then carry on with behaviour therapy.

The outcomes for people with obsessions and compulsions have improved immensely. Getting help for the disorder means a person will have less anxiety and depression. There are currently two approaches to the problem, often used in combination which are explained below:

The first approach is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), including Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) Therapy. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) or "talking therapy", focuses on helping people learn to identify, analyses and challenge their irrational thoughts. This is a therapy that can abstain and modify thought patterns contributing to a sufferers symptoms and aims to help change their behaviour. For example, sufferers may be progressively exposed to dirt or some kind and encouraged not to wash their hands. In simple terms it is used to change a sufferers negative thoughts to a positive one.

COGNITIVE: Sufferers learn new methods and ways to change their old thinking patterns and habits. Sufferers are taught to think and respond differently, than they have in the past.

BEHAVIOURAL: The behavioural aspect of therapy is the part where sufferers are actually put in everyday, real life situations and they repeatedly expose themselves to an obsession such as something they fear about, maybe they have a fear about contamination, like washing their hands. As they learn to modify their compulsive behaviour, their anxiety should lessen.

CBT for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder usually focuses on a type of behavioural therapy, and this is known as exposure and response therapy. Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) Therapy will help break contact between the sufferers obsessive thoughts and compulsive acts. This procedure is performed every day, for several weeks, even months until their anxiety decreases. Soon the urge to check the locks will lessen and eventually disappear. A huge 85% of people who take treatments of CBT without medicine get better. For the other small percentage anti-depressant drugs , such as prozac, can also help the healing process.

There is no age limit of those who can benefit from CBT treatment. Sufferers of any age can make significant progress. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is known to be an effective treatment for OCD in both adult and children.

SSRIs include fluoxetine (Prozac) and Paroxetine (Seroxat) and these drugs usually take a number of weeks (two to eight) to work, but sometimes a person can have no change for 6-8 weeks and then start to improve. It is vitally important to keep taking them, even if you feel they don't seem to make that much difference at the start but this will improve. Your GP or Psychiatrist may prescribe medicine to treat your OCD, but care must be taken at the end of the treatment, as symptoms can return once the drug is stopped. Left untreated, obsessions and the need to perform rituals can take over your life.

There are a number of SSRIs that is used to treat OCD.
Seroxat (paroxetine)
Prozac (fluoxetine)
Faverin (fluvoxamine)
Cipramil (citalopram)
Lustral (sertraline)

For example: for Seroxat tablets the starting dose is 20 mg per day. Your doctor may decide to increase the daily dose by 10 mg each week up to a maximum dose of 50 mg per day. The usual dose is 40 mg par day.

Did you know? More than 31million prescriptions were written for anti-depressants in the UK in 2006.

Please note, If there is anything you do not understand, or you want to know more about SSRIs, ask your doctor or pharmacist (chemist).