Disease Index

Homeopathy for OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

ocd
Written by Dr. Manish Bhatia

OCD is a disorder that involves recurrent, intrusive, and unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive, ritualistic behaviors (compulsions) People with OCD realize that their behavior is excessive, disruptive, and unreasonable, but are unable to change it or explain. The OCD can progress to the point where it hampers his or her routine life.

Are you looking for a homeopathic cure for OCD? This article discusses the homeopathy treatment of OCD along with the best homeopathic medicine for OCD treatment.

OCD is a disorder that involves recurrent, intrusive, and unwanted thoughts (obsessions), intrusive, and unwanted thoughts (obsessions), and repetitive, ritualistic behaviors (compulsions). People with obsessive compulsive disorder realize that their behavior is excessive, disruptive, and unreasonable, but are unable to change it or explain. It causes significant distress or impairment and can consume most of a person’s time.

In this condition there is a persistent intrusion of thoughts urges or actions that are unwanted but patient is unable to stop them. The recurrent unwanted thoughts are obsessions and repetitive behaviors are compulsions. Patient repeats the same work in order to make certain thoughts go away. Performing the task calms the anxiety temporary but obsessions return after some time. The OCD can progress to the point where it hampers his or her routine life. It is interesting to known OCD patient knows that their obsession and compulsions are senseless and unrealistic but they can not stop themselves.

Homeopathy Treatment & Homeopathic Remedies for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

homeopathy medicines for OCD obsessive compulsive disorder

Homeopathy treats the person as a whole. It means that homeopathic treatment focuses on the patient as a person, as well as his pathological condition. The homeopathic medicine for OCD selected after a full individualizing examination and case-analysis, which includes the medical history of the patient, physical and mental constitution etc. A miasmatic tendency (predisposition/susceptibility) is also often taken into account for the treatment of chronic conditions. The homeopathic medicine for OCD given below indicate the therapeutic affinity but this is not a complete and definite guide to the treatment of this condition. The symptoms listed against each medicine may not be directly related to this disease because in homeopathy general symptoms and constitutional indications are also taken into account for selecting a remedy. To study any of the following remedies in more detail, please visit our Materia Medica section. None of these homeopathic medicine for OCD should be taken without professional advice.

Repertory rubrics:

1) Mind-thoughts-persistent
2) Mind-thoughts-compelling

HOMEOPATHIC REMEDIES FOR OCD

Commonly indicated homeopathy for OCD

  • Arsenic album
  • Anacardium
  • Argentum Nitricum
  • Carcinosin
  • Hyoscyamus
  • Ignatia
  • Iodum
  • Medorrhinum
  • Natrum Mur
  • Natrum Sulph
  • Nux Vomica
  • Platina
  • Psorinum
  • Pulsatilla
  • Silicea
  • Staphysagria
  • Sulphur
  • Veratrum Album
  • Thuja
  • Syphilinum

1) Ars.alb:

  • Conscience, as if a crime had been committed. Inconsolable anguish, with complaints and lamentation.
  • Homeopathic medicine for OCD that has hypochondriacal humour, with restlessness and anxiety.
  • Fear of solitude, of spectres, and of robbers, with desire to hide oneself. Indecision and Changeable humour, which demands this at one time, that at another, and rejects everything after having obtained it.
  • Despair, he finds no rest, especially at night, with anguish.
  • Despondency, despair, weariness of life, inclination to suicide, or excessive fear of death, which is sometimes believed to be very near.
  • Extreme sensibility of all the organs, all noise, conversation, and clear lights are insupportable. Great apathy and indifference.
  • Great weakness of memory. Stupidity and dullness’.
  • Delirium, with great flow of ideas.
  • Madness, loss of mind (from the abuse of alcoholic drinks).
  • Great Prostration, with rapid sinking of the vital forces; fainting. The disposition is:
  • The greater the suffering the greater the anguish, restlessness and fear of death.

2) Cannabis indica:

  • Exaltation spirit, with excessive loquacity.
  • Full of fun and mischief, and laughs immoderately.
  • Hallucinations and imaginations innumerable.
  • Anguish, accompanied by great oppression: better in the open air.
  • Constant fear of becoming insane.
  • Exaggeration of duration of time and extent of space, seconds seem ages, a few rods an immense distance.
  • Horror of darkness. Fear of approaching death. Inability to recall any thought or event, on account of different thoughts crowding on his brain.
  • Sudden loss of speech, begins a sentence but cannot finish it.
  • Stammering and stuttering. Exaltation of spirits, with excessive loquacity.
  • Very absent-minded. Every few minutes he would lose himself, and then wake up, as it were, to those around him.
  • Delirium tremens, trembling, hallucinations, tendency to become furious, nausea, unquenchable thirst. Laughs at merest trifle. Sudden loss of memory.

3) Lachesis:

  • Timidity of character, with variableness and indecision.
  • Great apathy and extraordinary weakness of memory, everything that is heard is, as it were, effaced, even LACHESIS homeopathic medicine for OCDorthography is no longer remembered, and there is forgetfulness even of things on the point of utterance.
  • Mistakes are made in speaking and writing, as well as in the hours of the day and the days of the week.
  • Imbecility and loss of every mental faculty.
  • Over-excitement and excessive nervous irritability, with a tendency to be frightened.
  • Perfect happiness and cheerfulness followed by gradual fading of spirituality, want of self-control and lasciviousness, felt as if she was somebody else and in the hands of a stronger power. Amativeness. Affections of the intellect in general.
  • State of ecstasy and exaltation which even induces tears, desire to meditate, and to compose intellectual works, with a sort of pride.
  • Frantic loquacity with elevated language, nicely chosen words, rapid and continual change of subject-matter.
  • Loquaciousness, with mocking jealousy.

4) Medorrhinum:

  • Homeopathic medicine for OCD in which patient makes wrong statements, because she does not know what to say next, begins all right but does not know how to finish,
  • weight on vertex, which seems to affect the mind.
  • Difficulty in cncentrating his thoughts on abstract subjects.
  • Could not read or use mind at all from pain in head.
  • Thinks some one is behind her, hears whispering, sees faces that peer at her from behind bed and furniture.
  • Is sure she is going to die. Sensation as if all life were unreal, like a dream.
  • Wild and desperate feeling, as of incipient insanity.
  • Cannot speak without crying.
  • Is in a great hurry, when doing anything is in such a hurry that she gets fatigued.
  • Better by torrents of tears.
  • Is always anticipating, feels most matters sensitively before they occur and generally correctly. Dread of saying the wrong thing when she has headache.
  • Fear of the dark. Feeling as if he had ommitted the unpardonable sin and was going to hell. Irritated at little things.
  • Very impatient. Great selfishness.

5) Nat.mur:

  • Unpleasant recollections & much weeping.
  • Hypochondriacal, tired of life. Joyless, taciturn.
  • Hurriedness, with anxiety and fluttering of heart.
  • Prefers to be alone. Anthropophobia. Anxiety respecting the future.
  • Indifference, laconic speech, moroseness, and unfitness for labour.
  • Hatred to persons who have formerly given offence.
  • Laughs immoderately and cannot be quieted.
  • Difficulty of thinking, absence of mind.
  • Weakness of memory and excessive forgetfulness. Heedlessness and distraction.
  • Tendency to make mistakes in speaking and writing.
  • Brain-fag, with sleeplessness, gloomy forebodings.
  • Exhaustion after talking, embarrassment of rain.
  • Incapacity for reflection, and fatigue from intellectual labour. Distraction, does not know what he ought to say. Awkwardness.

6) Pulsatilla:

  • Homeopathic medicine for OCD that has impulse to hide or to run away, mistrust and suspicion.pulsatilla homeopathic medicine for OCD
  • Taciturn madness, with sullen, cold, and wandering air, sighs, often seated with the hands joined, but without uttering any complaint.
  • Despair of eternal happiness, with continual praying.
  • Discouragement, indecision, dread of occupation, and obstructed respiration.
  • Disposition envious, discontented, and covetous, exhibiting itself in a wish to appropriate everything.
  • Caprice, with desire at one time for one thing, at another time for something else, either being rejected as soon as obtained.
  • Hypochondriacal humour and moroseness, worse evening, often with repugnance to conversation, great sensitiveness, cries, and weeping.
  • Ill-humour, sometimes with a dread of labour, and disgust or contempt for everything.
  • Difficulty in expressing thoughts correctly when speaking, and tendency to omit letters when writing.iddiness, patient neither knows where he is nor what he does.
  • Great flow of very changeful ideas.
  • Weakness of memory. Fixed ideas. Stupidity.

7) Rhus-tox:

  • Anxious sadness and excessive anguish, especially (at twilight) in evening and at night, with wish for solitude and inclination to weep.
  • Restlessness which does not allow the patient to remain seated, and compels him to throw himself about in bed.
  • Homeopathic medicine for OCD that has anxiety with fear of death and sighs. Fear of being poisoned.
  • Suicidal mania (desire to throw himself into the water).
  • Moral dejection with anthropophobia.
  • Helplessness and profound despondency.
  • Weakness of memory and forgetfulness (cannot remember the most recent events).
  • Want of ideas and of mental energy.
  • Difficult comprehension. Slowness of conception and mental dullness. Delusions of the imagination and visions.

Pathology of OCD:

The precise pathology is not completely understood.
According to psychological school – obsessions are considered anxiogenic. OCD patients cannot escape this anxiety & therefore develop compulsion in an attempt to reduce or prevent the feared consequences. Reduction of anxiety reinforces the compulsive behaviour.

Symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive disorder

Obsessions are unwanted or meaningless thoughts, ideas, impulses, or images that persist in the mind of the individual, these thoughts may be unpleasant or repulsive, such as

  • Fear of dirt, contamination by germs, poisons, secretions.
  • Fear that something is wrong with their body in shape or function
  • Fear of bringing harm, injury, or death to self or others.
  • Worry that something is not done properly
  • Forbidden sexual or blasphemous thoughts
  • Needing to have objects in a particular place or order.

Compulsions are the urges one gets to perform certain behaviors in response to the obsessions. These ritual seem to lessen the anxiety causes by the obsession.

  • Excessive cleaning of objects. Hand washing is most common. Some children will wash up to 150 times a day to rid themselves of germs. This can result in chapped or bleeding hands.
  • Repeated checking to make sure an item is in its proper place.
  • Arranging objects in a specific position or order
  • Hoarding objects. Fears that something valuable will be lost
  • Repeating actions. Writing and erasing words or touching things an exact number or times.
  • Counting repeatedly to a specific number.
  • Thumb sucking or knuckle cracking
  • Nail biting
  • Self touching and touching other people and things.

Individuals with obsessive compulsive disorder do not want to perform these actions but are unable to stop until an inner sense relays the message that the action can be halted. They have no apparent control over the stopping and starting of obsessions and compulsions.

Obsessive compulsive disorder individuals tend to be serious and structured personalities. Friendships and social interaction are difficult  to initiate and maintain because of the need for perfection. They exhibit extraordinarily slow completion of tasks or tests because of their need for perfection. They make numerous erasures, causing holes in the paper. They may refuse to turn in work because they need to check it one more time. They may have difficulty with note taking because they want to write down every word and do it perfectly. They may make frequent trips to the restroom to hide the rituals.

Causes of obsessive compulsive disorder

  1. Genetic – the lifetime risk for Obsessive compulsive disorder is increased in first-degree relative of patients diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder.
  2. Structural organic abnormalities – parents with obsessive compulsive disorder have an increased rate of minor, non-localizing neurological signs but no specific neurological lesions has been identifies. Positron emission tomography 9pet) and functional MRI have shown increased activity in the frontal lobes, caudate nucleus, and cingulum in obsessive compulsive disorder patients.
  3. Neurotransmitters – the clinical benefits of SSRIs in obsessive compulsive disorder suggests that a dysregulation of the 5HT pathways may play a role in its etiology.
  4. Autoimmune factors – for many years it has been known that Sydenham’s chorea-an autoimmune disease of the basal ganglia-is associated with Obsessive compulsive disorder in two-thirds of cases.
  5. Early experience – obsessional mothers might be expected to transmit a tendency to obsessional symptoms to their children through social learning.
  6. Psychological causes – obsession can be thought of as a conditional response to an anxiety-provoking event. The patient develops avoidant behaviours to try and avoid experiencing the anxiety provoking events.

Diagnosis of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Ideally, an evaluation should be conducted before  these behaviors become intrusive and interfere with individual’s ability to function. Obsessive compulsive disorder is a neurological disorder, it requires a medical evaluation. There are no blood tests, X-rays, or other medical tests for OCD, usually obsessive compulsive disorder is diagnosed by identifying the situations causing the obsession and or/ compulsions and rating how anxious the patient becomes of the ritual is not performed.

Several measures are used to gather this information. One such tool is the yale-brown obsessive compulsive scale. Another is the Leyton Obsessional Inventory.

The results of these measures, along with interviews, data from the school, and family and developmental histories, give vital information to the evaluator. The criteria used in the diagnosis of OCD can be found in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder.

Differential diagnosis:

1) Obsessive compulsive personality.
2) Depressive disorders.
3) Phobic disorders.
4) Generalised anxiety disorders.
5) Post-traumatic stress disorders.
6) Tic disorders.
7) Anorexia nervosa.

The above information about homeopathy treatment of OCD is only for information purpose. Please consult a professional homeopath before taking any homeopathic medicine for OCD. 

OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Cases Cured with Homeopathic Medicine

Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder (OCD)–Argentum Nitricum – by Elaine Lewis, Mati Fuller

Tourette, OCD and Insomnia in a Man of 26 – by Kavitha Kukunoor

A Case of Joint Pain and OCD – by Prabodhchandra Meshram

A Case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – by Claudia De Rosa

A Case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – by Jawahar Shah

Obsession for Cleanliness in a Child of Seven – by Vanita Rajiv Johari

About the author

Dr. Manish Bhatia

- BHMS, BCA, M.Sc Homeopathy (UK), CICH (Greece), MD (Hom)
- Associate Professor, Organon & Homeopathic Philosophy, SKH Medical College, Jaipur
- Founder Director of Hpathy.com
- Editor, Homeopathy for Everyone
- Co-author - Homeopathy and Mental Health Care: Integrative Practice, Principles and Research
- Author - Lectures on Organon of Medicine vol 1, 2, 3. CCH Approved. (English, German, Bulgarian)
- Awardee - Raja Pajwan Dev Award for Excellence in the Field of Medicine; APJ Abdul Kalam Award for Excellence in Homeopathy Education
- Visit Dr. Bhatia's website

10 Comments

  • RESPECTED SIR,
    I HAVE SUFFERING FROM OCD DISORDER SINCE LAST 5 YEAR HAVE A SUCCESS RATE IN OCD IN HOMEOPATHIC IF YES PLZ SUGGEST ME ONE OF THE BEST DOCTOR IN KOLKATA .ITS URGENT
    THANKS AND REGARD
    RANJEET

  • My wife is suffering with ocd since last 12 years and had been under treatment with psychiatrist, her basic problem is that she never allows to go to kitchen if someone goes for lavatory forcing them to take bath otherwise starts shouting, she has always in sad mood. She had gone for cbt for some time. In between she left the medicine now again since last 6months she is under treatment with psychiatrist. Now she take the following medicine: fluvoxine cr 100 -hs, clonil 75sr-hs, and serenace 0.25mg -hs. Now I would be very much thankful to you that if you could advise me for some other treatment or it is ok and how long she should take these medicine. Is there any best treatment in nasik. Thanks,

  • I m suffering g from ocd depression problem .I m taking Allopathic medication .I m looking for good homeopathy treatment
    Pls help me

  • my husband is suffering from ocd for the last 8 years. he is not taking any medicine . but his position is getting worst day by day.
    may please advise for some homeopathy medicine , which we could give him in his food.

  • Dear doctor! I need Homeopathic remedy for my 15 year old daughter who has learning difficulty but have severe OCD for last 4 months. She cannot tolerate things and want to touch everything she see. she close her eyes to avoid seeing and touching when she walk outside. does not sleep at night but sleep very late night or in the morning. need some remedy for her. thanks. M Khan

  • Dear doctor,
    My daughter aged 27 years is suffering from OCD and sleep disorder for the last 4 years. Kindly let me know how to contact you to proceed further.
    Thanks

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