Obsessive compulsive disorder, the rituals that seem harmless but must set off the alarm

Obsession has its origins in the tendency to mental repetition of cognitive patterns relating to behaviors to be followed in relation to specific performances required (an exam, a job interview, a meeting with a person who attracts us). This is a way to reduce the tension associated with the event and, at the same time, improve one’s reading of the surrounding world and one’s ability to provide efficient behavioral responses. That’s why, for those who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)even a simple contact with the handle of a public toilet is enough to trigger a series of uncontrolled thoughts which, in this specific case, are rooted in such an irrational fear of germs that it pushes the individual to wash their hands up to 50 times a day for fear of contamination. In people suffering from OCD everything goes out of control — confirms the psychiatrist and psychotherapist Giancarlo Cerveri— and the presence of compulsionsthat is, ritual behaviors that often present a semantic assonance with obsessions and are often a source of disability, which is frequent and more easily recognizable for those who live with the subject in question.
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