Obsessive-Compulsive, Trauma-Related, and Dissociative Disorders

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Hoarding Disorder, PTSD, and Dissociative Disorders based on lecture notes.

Obsessions

Repetitive, persistent, intrusive, time-consuming, and unwanted thoughts, urges, or images that cause significant distress or impairment.

Compulsions

Time-consuming, repetitive behaviors or mental acts that an individual performs in response to an obsession, often aimed at reducing distress or preventing harm.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)

A disorder characterized by preoccupations with perceived defects or flaws in physical appearance that are not observable or appear slight to others, requiring an individual to spend at least $3\text{ to }8\text{ hours}$ per day consumed by these obsessions.

Muscle Dysmorphia

A subtype specifier of Body Dysmorphic Disorder occurring predominantly within the male population, defined by the belief that one's body is too small or lacks appropriate muscle definition.

Insight Specifiers in BDD

A diagnostic indicator describing the degree of awareness a patient has regarding their BDD beliefs, ranging from good to absent/delusional insight; on average, insight is poor, and at least $1/3$ of individuals display absent or delusional insight.

Hoarding Disorder

A disorder marked by the persistent over-accumulation of possessions and failure to discard items over a prolonged period, which is not attributable to a recent significant stressor.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

A trauma- and stressor-related disorder developing after an extremely threatening or horrific event, characterized by symptoms enduring for more than $1\text{ month}$ that cause clinically significant distress across re-experiencing, avoidance, cognitive/mood alterations, and heightened arousal.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) Diagnostic Criteria

A condition characterized by two or more distinct personality states or experiences of possession, marked by disruptions in self-agency, memory gaps inconsistent with ordinary forgetting, and affect or sensory-motor alterations not caused by substances or cultural practices.

Depersonalization and Derealization

Dissociative symptoms characterized by feeling detached from or like an outside observer of oneself (depersonalization) or experiencing an altered, unreal perception of one's surroundings (derealization).

Prevalence Rates for OCD Spectrum Disorders

Epidemiological benchmarks establishing lifetime prevalence at approximately $1.2\text{\%}$ for OCD, $2.4\text{\%}$ for Body Dysmorphic Disorder, and an estimated $1.5\text{\%}\text{ to }6\text{\%}$ for Hoarding Disorder.

Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC)

A frontal lobe brain region responsible for mediating strong emotional responses, converting them into behavioral outputs, and transmitting these impulses into the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuit.

Caudate Nuclei

Subcortical structures that receive impulses from the orbitofrontal cortex, filter through them, and pass the refined signals along to the thalamus.

Cortico-Striato-Thalamo-Cortical (CSTC) Circuit

A hyperactive neural circuit identified on brain scans in individuals with OCD, encompassing sensorimotor, dorsal cognitive, and ventral motivational loops that regulate behavioral responses.

Disconfirmation Bias

A cognitive bias in OCD wherein an individual continually seeks out evidence of their failure and overinterprets potential negative outcomes due to an inability to trust their own instincts.

Operant Conditioning in OCD

The behavioral mechanism by which compulsions are acquired and maintained; because engaging in compulsive behaviors temporarily relieves distress and anxiety, the actions are negatively reinforced.

Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP)

A behavioral treatment for OCD conducted in vivo, via video, or imaginally, where clients are systematically exposed to a hierarchy of obsessions while being restrained from performing compulsive rituals, showing an $86\text{\%}$ response rate.

Psychodynamic Model of OCD

An etiology derived from Sigmund Freud proposing that OCD arises from an intrapsychic battle between the id and ego, anchored in conflicts and toilet-training experiences during the anal stage of development.

Forbidden Thoughts Dimension

An OCD symptom category marked by unacceptable, intrusive aggressive, sexual, or religious obsessions that individuals attempt to neutralize via covert mental rituals, praying, or somatic checking.