The managing director of the My Way Psychiatry Clinic in Germany, Klaus Dirk Kamps, said that obsessive-compulsive disorder is a psychological illness that simply means excessive fear of illness.
Exaggerating symptoms
Camps explained that the main symptom of obsessive disorder is excessive preoccupation with physical symptoms, often without medical results, while exaggerating the seriousness of the symptoms. Patients believe, for example, that a regular headache may indicate a brain tumor.
Because of their excessive fear, patients constantly monitor their bodily functions, for example measuring their pulse or blood pressure every few minutes, and interpreting the smallest differences as warning signs of serious illness.
Patients also visit many doctors with doubts about the validity of the medical results, in addition to avoiding situations that increase their fear of contracting the disease, whether related to professional activities or recreational activities, which causes major restrictions that hinder them from living their lives normally.
For this reason, in the future, mental illness will also be part of the new classification of obsessive-compulsive disorder, according to the current “ICD11” list issued by the World Health Organization.
Behavioral therapy
If patients do not undergo treatment in a timely manner, they may easily fall prey to other psychological diseases such as depression and panic attacks.
Obsessive disorder can be treated by undergoing behavioral therapy, which helps patients reach the roots of their fears and develop coping strategies that enable them to live daily life with much fewer fears.