Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a disease with obsession and/or compulsion as the main symptoms. Due to these symptoms the person goes through an intense anxiety. Obsession can be summed up as follows. The thoughts that unwillingly come to the mind of the person are not appropriate for him/her which leads to anxiety, and are repetitive. The content of these thoughts varies. The most common obsessions are:

1. Dirtiness obsessions: The thought of contamination of germ or sperm in the conditions of contact to the objects especially in the restrooms, handshaking and holding door handles.
2. Suspicion obsessions: Thoughts of being unsure about whether an action is done or not (although he/she knows that it is done). The common obsessions include locking the door or not and plugging the iron out or not.
3. Aggressiveness obsessions: Thoughts of killing or injuring other people. These thoughts can be observed with mothers obsessing about killing or injuring their child. Sometimes the person can have obsessions of hurting himself/herself (such as killing oneself, throwing oneself under a car).
4. Symmetry obsessions: Obsessions related to objects being in a certain order and place or being in absolute symmetry.

Apart from these obsessions, there can be obsessions related sexuality (to be in an intercourse with any person or their child) or religion (abuse religion or God).

Compulsions are behaviors that appear as a reaction to the obsessions above to resolve the anxiety that these disturbing obsessions create, usually repeats itself according to certain rules and experienced as an obligation. The common examples are compulsions of hygiene or washing (especially hand washing) and checking. Compulsions sometimes appear as a thought. It can be exemplified as constantly and repetitively praying or counting, reading license plates. Constantly asking questions or need to receive approval are examples of compulsion that surfaces especially for suspicion obsessions. Even if these behaviors are intended to reduce anxiety, this is usually not entirely successful, and the person with OCD complaints continues to go through an intense uneasiness.

People with OCD symptoms usually have doubts of committing an action, difficulty in making decisions and excessive slowness in starting or performing an action. Especially because the person is unsure of doing something right or wrong, the action takes much longer to be completed due to focusing too much on the details not to make a mistake. If we add the difficulty in making decisions to these reasons, sometimes it is impossible to finish the tasks. In this respect, OCD is a disease that makes the lives of the patient very hard and sometimes paralyzes it. In OCD cases, depression is often included in the table.

There are several approaches on how OCD emerged. The most reasonable approach would be assuming that the common effects of biological, psychological and social factors leads to the emergence of the disease. Related to this, psychological treatment methods in addition to medication in OCD treatment would be an appropriate choice to make the patient feel better. Generally, the drugs used to treat depression are also chosen for OCD treatment (dosage is higher than in cases of depression). As for psychotherapy, additional to medication, cognitive behavioral methods and psychoanalytic-oriented-psychotherapy or psychoanalysis are the appropriate methods.