News in Mind

As part of my client caseload I have come across a lot of individuals who are battling with the debilitating and highly entrenched mental health issue of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

 

Because I know just how difficult and distressing this disorder can be to sufferers I get highly agitated at TV commercials that use the fear factor of germs, dirt and grime to sell their products.

 

OCD is the fourth-most common mental disorder, and is diagnosed nearly as often as asthma and diabetes. It can be described as an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts or obsessions that produce anxiety, which then create the need to undertake repetitive behaviors or compulsions aimed at reducing that anxiety.

 

Symptoms may include repetitive hand-washing, excessive hoarding, and nervous habits, such as constant checking to see if something is locked or turned off, or constantly opening and shutting doors a certain number of times.

 

These symptoms can be time consuming and highly frustrating and can interrupt a person’s ability to leave the house, work or have long-lasting relationships.

 

Sometimes these symptoms can be associated with obsessions around dirt and germs, which in the OCD mind, could lead to be person getting sick or even dying. This can then lead to compulsions of hand-washing and excessive cleaning.

 

So, advertisements that play on the fear around such bacteria and health destroying germs aggravate me beyond belief.

 

My largest bug bear at the moment is with an advertisement which sells the non-touch hand pump (wouldn’t you still be getting the germs from the water tap if that was the case?).

 

But this is only one of many ads that are constantly trying to sell us an endless array of antibacterial sprays and wipes. In my view, they only serve to heighten the anxiety of already vulnerable minds and can turn average householders who enjoy cleanliness into paranoid individuals who may begin to think that they need to kill every possible germ around lest they aren’t doing their job.

 

Both of which are just blatantly false.

 

Unfortunately, to make things worse, one of the only ways to overcome OCD is to become exposed to the obsession (i.e. germs) whilst managing their anxiety and resist performing the compulsion (i.e. hand-washing), to learn that it isn’t in fact so fearful in the first place. But these ads only serve as proof to back up their obsessional thinking which makes the idea of exposing themselves to such harmful bacteria as equivalent to some form of self-harm.

 

Thus, ads which play on the fears of many about germs and sickness may help to sell their products and earn their companies lots of money, but unfortunately, the whole thing can result in very treatment resistant OCD and sufferers who are doomed to be locked in their houses constantly washing their hands and cleaning.

 

Kylie Hobbs (nee Sawley) is Principal Psychologist at ASSIST Psychological & Counselling Services.