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OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER REPORT
Louise nelson 11e
Case Study:

Michael is a 30 year old male father of two children, who presents with a nine year history of obsessive compulsions. He engages in extensive checking behaviour which occupies up to two hours of each day and significantly interferes with his life.

Michael reports that he has always been a worrier and that as a teenager, he would occasionally phone home to ask the family to ensure that he had switched off appliances. At the age of 21 Michael left his family home to get married, and around this time Michael noticed dramatic increases in his checking behaviour. He attributes this to the increased responsibility of having his own home, and the fact that there was no one there to turn things off or protect the house from intruders after he and his wife have gone to work. Although initially he was satisfied with a quick glance at all the appliances, over time his checking behaviour became more complex and time consuming. With the births of his children his fears worsened again, so that whenever he tried to sleep he had images of his young children being caught in a fire, or being stolen from their beds. And so he returned to check the stove and the window for a second, third or fourth time, until gradually he felt he had no control over his checking behaviour at all.

When ever Michael leaves his house, and before he goes to bad at night, he is plagued with doubts that he has not switched of electrical appliances and locked the doors and windows. Michael is terrified that if something was left on accidentally, there could be a fire and something terrible might happen. He does not want to be inadvertently responsible for harm befalling onto his loved ones, neighbours, or other people, and so he checks “dangerous” items repeatedly to be certain that they are safely turned off. This checking is performed in a ritualised manner because over looking...