🧠 Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

✅ Answer: (D) Combination of Behaviour and Drug Therapy

📖 What is OCD?

Obsessive = Repeated unwanted thoughts, images, or urges
Compulsive = Repetitive actions performed to reduce anxiety
Disorder = A mental health condition

👉 Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric disorder in which a person experiences obsessions (intrusive thoughts) and/or compulsions (repetitive behaviors such as excessive hand washing, checking, or counting).

🩺 Why is Option (D) Correct?

The most effective treatment for moderate to severe OCD is a combination of:

• ✔ Behaviour Therapy—especially Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), a form of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
• ✔ Drug Therapy—mainly Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) such as fluoxetine, sertraline, or fluvoxamine

👉 Combining behaviour therapy with medication provides better symptom control and lower relapse rates than either treatment alone in many patients.

❌ Why Other Options Are Wrong?

(A) Behaviour Therapy
❌ Highly effective and may be the first choice for mild OCD, but for many exam questions the overall treatment of choice is the combination of therapy and medication.

(B) Drug Therapy
❌ SSRIs reduce obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors but work best when combined with behavioural therapy.

(C) Psychosurgery
❌ Reserved only for extremely severe, treatment-resistant OCD after all standard treatments have failed.

📝 Treatment Options for OCD

📌 Exam Tip: If the options include “Combination of Behaviour Therapy and Drug Therapy”, it is generally the best answer for the overall management of moderate to severe OCD. If the question asks specifically for the most common psychotherapy, the answer is Behaviour Therapy (Exposure and Response Prevention).