Re:PTSD or OCD?

Intrusive thoughts of harm coming to self and/or family are fairly common in OCD. Often the basic idea is that if I say/think/do the wrong thing this will cause harm to myself or those I care about. For example, a young man I am working with currently worries that if he wears the wrong shoes, this will harm God and, as a result, family members will become ill (OCD gets pretty strange sometimes). If the client has intrusive, anxiety-provoking, thoughts of harm occuring to self and/or family members in the future, it may well be OCD.

In PTSD, the intrusive thoughts typically are intrusive memories of previous trauma. If the client has intrusive memories of traumatic events that happened in the past, that would be consistent with PTSD but it takes more than intrusive memories to satisfy diagnostic criteria for PTSD.

Take a look at the diagnostic criteria in DSM-IV and consider whether the client qualifies for either diagnosis. There are other diagnoses that might be worth considering. For example, if the client has many other worries as well, generalized anxiety disorder would be a possibility.

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Re:PTSD or OCD?, by , 02/14/04

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