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Prior to the 1960s, many experts in the field of clinical neuroscience thought that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) does not have any suitable treatment. Attempts to treat OCD with psychotherapy and medication measures on psychodynamics have failed, and it was only during 1966 when experts were able to realize that exposure and ritual prevention is a much more effective treatment for said disorder. Foa (2010) seeks to show the degree of effectiveness of the aforementioned treatment for OCD, focusing on current techniques in cognitive behavioral theory (CBT) through variations of exposure and ritual or response prevention (EX/RP), one that has strong empirical evidence.
In conducting the literature search, I have consulted a number of journal article publications by entering my search terms on Google Scholar, which is a conventional Internet-based tool for scholarly research. Upon browsing Google Scholar, I set my search parameters to publications published within the past 5 years (since 2008) alongside my keywords “obsessive-compulsive disorder”. I chose this study by Foa (2010) because its substance bears a highly controversial topic in the field of clinical neuroscience, which is OCD treatment. This study reckoned that experts were only able to find treatment for OCD in 1966 in the form of EX/RP, as it gauged the rate of effectiveness of current forms of such treatment. While I do not mean to suggest other treatment mechanisms that may be more effective than EX/RP by reviewing this study, I nevertheless intended to call on for further studies on OCD treatment to complement such standard remedy (Foa, 2010).
This study aims to cover the key conceptualizations in cognitive behavior that influenced treatments for OCD. Apart from discussing current treatment regimens involving EX/RP, the study also discusses psychodynamic psychotherapy and early behavioral therapy as a matter of providing a clear picture of the context of the study, which centers on conceptual influences on OCD treatment. What this study tries to fulfill is the gap on OCD treatment, which remains relatively open given the lack of established treatment regimens other than the one cited in this study, which is on EX/RP. Verily, this study seeks to inspire the advancement of further studies on OCD treatment by assessing EX/RP, the most empirically effective treatment for the disorder (Foa, 2010).
In discussing key points, this study has undertaken a descriptive approach in discussing the history of various treatment efforts for OCD. Starting from the failures of psychodynamic psychotherapy and early behavioral therapy, the study went on to emphasize that the application and development of CBT and EX/RP proved pivotal to the efforts of experts to treat OCD. The main hypothesis tackled in this study concerns the impression of experts that CBT being the most reliable OCD treatment regimen based on published research, despite the empirical strength attributed to EX/RP. Thus, the research question for this study concerns which of the two between CBT and EX/RP is more effecting in treating OCD. Moreover, this study also recommends the improvement of CBT as treatment for OCD complementing EX/RP, given that the latter has received acclaim for its strong empirical showing (Foa, 2010).
This study included a sample of OCD patients from various studies that enrolled in EX/RP treatment programs. In each reviewed study, the participation duration of OCD patients stand as the main criteria for determining the helpfulness of EX/RP treatment programs. The sample is composed of an accumulation of patients that participated in EX/RP treatment programs in all reviewed studies (Foa, 2010).
Highly significant in this study is the fact that OCD patients, being the dependent variable, show no signs of certainty on generating positive responses to EX/RP treatment programs, which are the independent variables. Most of the OCD patients in the sample may have shown support for EX/RP treatment programs in their hopes to gain effective recovery, but as the findings show, not even their cooperation has proven EX/RP treatment programs as a 100% guarantee for treating OCD (Foa, 2010; Andersson et al., 2011).
The methodology this study has employed focused on reviewing the literature on EX/RP treatment programs given that such has the most compelling empirical evidence at hand. With the sample coming from the selected literature, this study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of EX/RP treatment programs on them based on their participation duration. The longer an OCD patient stays within an EX/RP treatment program towards completion, the more he has benefited from it (Foa, 2010).
Findings in this study revealed that an accumulated 80% of the sample in all of the selected literature has shown positive reactions towards EX/RP treatment programs, while the remaining 20% shown otherwise. Of the 80%, a further 20% involved OCD patients that exited early from the EX/RP treatment programs. Therefore, only 60% of the OCD patients in the sample have shown positive responses and have completed their EX/RP treatment programs, reflecting the continued vulnerability of such treatment regimen to other factors. On that ground, this study recommends the further development of CBT as an alternative complementing EX/RP (Foa, 2010; Speisman, Storch and Abramowitz, 2011).
In my view, this study is a compelling exposition of the reality of research efforts on OCD treatment. As there is a widely held agreement that not much studies on creating an effective OCD treatment abound apart from CBT and EX/RP, I find this study weak in that it did not present a comprehensive literature review on CBT in the same was as that on EX/RP. Rendering CBT as an alternative to EX/RP is, in the foregoing aspect, weakly justified, despite the calls of this study on conducting further research on the former. Moreover, the study only seemed to have emphasized the empirical potency of EX/RP without its own laboratory data and with great reliance to the reviewed literature. For this study to become more compelling than it is right now, it has to extend towards conducting first-hand research involving a standalone sample different to that of the ones in the reviewed literature, as such could make findings more convincing.
References
Andersson, E., Ljotsson, B., Hedman, E., Kaldo, V., Paxling, B., Andersson, G., Lindefors, N., and Ruck, C. (2011). Internet-based cognitive behavior therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder: A pilot study. BMC Psychiatry, 11(125), 1-10.
Foa, E. (2010). Cognitive behavioral therapy of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 12(2), 199-207.
Rubin, A., and Babbie, E. (2008). Research methods for social work. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Thomson Learning.
Speisman, B., Storch, E., and Abramowitz, J. (2011). Postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecological and Neonatal Nursing, 40(6), 680-690.
