A talk box (also spelled talkbox and talk-box) is an effects unit that allows musicians to modify the sound of a musical instrument by shaping the frequency content of the sound and to apply speech sounds (in the same way as singing) onto the sounds of the instrument. Typically, a talk box directs sound from the instrument into the musician's mouth by means of a plastic tube adjacent to a vocal microphone. The musician controls the modification of the instrument's sound by changing the shape of the mouth, "vocalizing" the instrument's output into a microphone.

Overview

A talk box is usually an effects pedal that sits on the floor and contains a speaker attached with an airtight connection to a plastic tube; however, it can come in other forms, including homemade, usually crude, versions, and higher quality custom-made versions. The speaker is generally in the form of a compression driver, the sound-generating part of a horn loudspeaker with the horn replaced by the tube connection.

The box has connectors for the connection to the speaker output of an instrument amplifier and a connection to a normal instrument speaker. A foot-operated switch on the box directs the sound either to the talk box speaker or to the normal speaker. The switch is usually a push-on/push-off type. The other end of the tube is taped to the side of a microphone, extending enough to direct the reproduced sound in or near the performer's mouth.

When activated, the sound from the amplifier is reproduced by the speaker in the talk box and directed through the tube into the performer's mouth. The shape of the mouth filters the sound, with the modified sound being picked up by the microphone. The shape of the mouth changes the harmonic content of the sound in the same way it affects the harmonic content generated by the vocal folds when speaking.

The performer can vary the shape of the mouth and position of the tongue, changing the sound of the instrument being reproduced by the talk box speaker. The performer can mouth words, with the resulting effect sounding as though the instrument is speaking. This "shaped" sound exits the performer's mouth, and when it enters a microphone, an instrument/voice hybrid is heard.

The sound can be that of any musical instrument, but the effect is most commonly associated with the guitar. The rich harmonics of an electric guitar are shaped by the mouth, producing a sound very similar to voice, effectively allowing the guitar to appear to "speak".

The effect produced by talk boxes and vocoders are often conflated by listeners. However, they have radically different mechanisms for achieving the effect. Talk boxes send the carrier signal into the singer's mouth, where it is then modulated by the singer themselves. On the other hand, vocoders process both the carrier and the modulator signal integrally, producing the output as a separate electric signal. They are also more common in different genres: a talk box is often found in rock music due to its typical pairing with a guitar, whereas vocoders are almost always paired with synthesizers, and as such, are ubiquitous in electronic music.

History

Singing guitar

In 1939, Alvino Rey, amateur radio operator W6UK, used a carbon throat microphone wired in such a way as to modulate his electric steel guitar sound. The mic, originally developed for military pilot communications, was placed on the throat of Rey's wife Luise King (one of The King Sisters), who stood behind a curtain and mouthed the words, along with the guitar lines. The novel-sounding combination was called "Singing Guitar", and employed on stage and in the movie Jam Session, as a "novelty" attraction, but was not developed further.

Rey also created a somewhat similar "talking" effect by manipulating the tone controls of his Fender electric guitar, but the vocal effect was less pronounced.

Sonovox
Another early voice effect using the same principle of the throat as a filter was the Sonovox, invented by Gilbert Wright in 1939. Instead of a throat microphone modulating a guitar signal, it used small transducers attached to the performer's throat to produce sounds that the mouth shapes. The Sonovox was marketed and promoted by the Wright-Sonovox company, an affiliate of the Free & Peters advertising agency.

The Sonovox was used in many radio station IDs and jingles produced by JAM Creative Productions and the PAMS advertising agency of Dallas, Texas. Lucille Ball made one of her earliest film appearances during the 1930s in a Pathé Newsreel demonstrating the Sonovox.

The first use in music was a score by Ernst Toch in the Paramount Picture "The Ghost Breakers", in June 1940. The Sonovox was used to produce the "voice" of the anthropomorphic train Casey Jr. in the 1941 animated film Dumbo, and was also used for the "talking piano" in a children's record issued on Capitol Records entitled Sparky's Magic Piano.

Talking steel guitar

Pete Drake, a Nashville-based player of the pedal steel guitar, used a talk box on his 1964 album Forever, in what came to be called his "talking steel guitar". The following year Gallant released three albums with the box, Pete Drake & His Talking Guitar, Talking Steel and Singing Strings, and Talking Steel Guitar. Drake's device consisted of an 8-inch paper cone speaker driver attached to a funnel from which a clear tube brought the sound to the performer's mouth. It was only loud enough to be useful in the recording studio.

Another prominent use of the talking steel guitar appears in The Ventures' Christmas Album, released in 1965. In the song "Silver Bells", Red Rhodes spoke through a talk box, distorting the phrase silver bells.

Kustom Electronics talk box ("The Bag")
The Kustom Electronics device "The Bag" was the first mass market talk box and was housed in a decorative bag slung over the shoulder like a wine bottle. It used a 30-watt driver and was released to the mass music market in early 1969, two years before Bob Heil's talk box became widely available. The Bag is claimed to have been designed by Doug Forbes, who states that exactly the same concept (speaker attached to a plastic tube and inserted into the mouth) had previously been patented as an artificial larynx.

Stevie Wonder gave the talk box its first national television prominence, performing a medley of The Carpenters' (They Long To Be) Close To You and Jackson 5's Never Can Say Goodbye all via a Kustom Bag live on the David Frost show in 1972. The performance was later sampled on Frank Ocean's Close To You.

David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, who automatically doubles his guitar leads by singing them as he plays (whether on mic or not), was an obvious candidate for both the talk box and the vocoder, experimenting with merging voice and instrument into a single unified sound. The effect was employed during the lengthy guitar solo sections of "Raving and Drooling" and "You've Got to Be Crazy" on the 1974 tour, which would eventually become "Sheep" and "Dogs" on the Animals album.

Jeff Beck was seen using the Kustom Bag talk box in May 1973 on Superstition at a Santa Monica concert. He also used it on "She's a Woman" from his 1975 release Blow by Blow, and was seen using it for the song on BBC television program "Five Faces of the Guitar" in 1974 in which he also explains its use to the host of the show.

Heil high-powered talk box
The first high-powered talk box was developed by Bob Heil. Heil came up with the first high-powered talk box that could be reliable when used on high-level rock stages. His first Heil talk box was built for Joe Walsh's Barnstorm tour. Heil and Walsh, both avid ham radio operators (K9EID and WB6ACU, respectively), along with Walsh's guitar tech "Krinkle", combined a 250-watt JBL driver and suitable hi-pass filter which was used for Walsh's single "Rocky Mountain Way". Walsh gives credit to Bill West, an electrical engineer, Nashville steel guitarist and first husband of country-music legend Dottie West, for inventing the talk box for him in a 2006 interview with Howard Stern.

Pete Townshend, in his 2012 autobiography Who I Am, claimed to have invented a version of the talk box during a Who tour of the US in 1976. "I built a speaker in a small box, attached a tube and put the tube in my mouth, allowing me to speak music."

In 1988, Heil sold the manufacturing rights to Dunlop Manufacturing, Inc., which currently builds the Heil talk box to the exact standards that Heil designed in 1973.

The classic rock artist Peter Frampton made extensive use of the talk box in his music. In an interview for the 1999 DVD Live in Detroit, Frampton says he first heard the talk box in 1970 while sitting in on sessions for George Harrison's All Things Must Pass. While he sat next to Pete Drake in the album sessions at Abbey Road Studios, he heard Pete using it with a pedal steel guitar. Frampton said in the same interview that the sound it produced reminded him of an audio effect he loved listening to on Radio Luxembourg in the later 1960s. Frampton acquired one as a Christmas present from Bob Heil in 1974. It was a hand-built talk box in a fiberglass box using a 100-watt high-powered driver. This was the Heil talk box used for the Frampton Comes Alive tour and album. He then promptly locked himself away in a practice space for two weeks, and came out with some mastery of it. Due to the success of the albums Frampton and Frampton Comes Alive!, and particularly the hit singles "Do You Feel Like We Do" and "Show Me the Way", Frampton has become somewhat synonymous with the talk box.

Peter Frampton also now sells his own line of custom-designed "Framptone" products, including a talk box.

In 1976, Steely Dan guitarist Walter Becker recorded the talk box effect atop an already-recorded Dean Parks solo in "Haitian Divorce", on the album The Royal Scam. Also from 1977, Johnnie "Guitar" Watson used a talk box. The 1974 album 461 Ocean Boulevard features Eric Clapton using a talk box during his outgoing solo on the song "Mainline Florida".

ElectroSpit
Producer Bosko, who played talk box on Big Boi's 2010 album Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty, conceived an alternative to the cumbersome and unsanitary talk box in mid-2014, imagining a neck-worn electronic system that would be easier to use. Bosko showed the ElectroSpit prototype in 2016, and launched a Kickstarter campaign in June 2018. The device sends sound into the mouth by way of electromagnetic transducers placed against the throat, allowing the user to shape the sounds of a synthesizer, guitar or any other electronic source. Bosko released the ElectroSpit product in 2019, showing it at the NAMM Show. Early users of the ElectroSpit include P-Thugg of Chromeo, Terrace Martin who works with Kendrick Lamar, and Teddy Riley.

Non-musical uses
A talk box connected to an iPad running an effects program was used to create the voice of the character BB-8 in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

See also
Auto-Tune
Vocoder
Wah-wah pedal

References

External links
 National Talkbox Association's Website
 GF Works Talkbox Index
 The Talkbox FAQ
 The Effects Database Forum – The Bag

Effects units
Tone, EQ and filter
Digital signal processing
Sound recording
Music hardware
2010s in music

Talk box


Levy Mayer (October 23, 1858 – August 14, 1922) was an American lawyer from Virginia. A child prodigy of law, Mayer graduated from Yale Law School before he could even legally practice the profession in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois. After several years organizing the Chicago Law Library, Mayer practiced with Adolf Kraus. Mayer became one of the most infamous lawyers in Chicago by defending large corporations against anti-trust litigation. Furthermore, he successfully defended the Iroqouis Theater and its manager in the aftermath of the Iroquois Theatre fire. At the time of his death, he was considered one of the richest lawyers in the United States. He is the namesake of Levy Mayer Hall at Northwestern University and his law firm is today known as Mayer Brown.

Biography
Levy Mayer was born in Richmond, Virginia, on October 23, 1858, the sixth of thirteen children. His parents had immigrated from Bavaria three years earlier and moved to Chicago, Illinois when Mayer was young. Mayer attended public schools, including Chicago High School, where he graduated in 1874. He studied at Yale College, then the Yale Law School, graduating in 1876. When he returned to Chicago, he was hired as assistant librarian of the Law Institute in the Rookery Building, as he could not legally practice law until aged 21. He oversaw improvements at the library and, by the time he left, the collection exceeded 17,000 books. He edited two collections of manuscripts from David Rorer, one on judicial & execution sales and the other on interstate or private international law. Mayer also organized the first printed catalog at the library.

The Supreme Court of Illinois admitted Mayer to the bar upon reaching age 21; he then left the library to practice with Kraus & Brackett. When Brackett retired soon afterward, Adolf Kraus admitted Mayer as junior partner of Kraus & Mayer. The firm was later known as Kraus Mayer & Stein and Moran Kraus Mayer & Stein. When Stein and Moran retired, the firm became Moran Mayer & Meyer. The firm focused on constitutional, corporation, and municipal law. He frequently defended corporations facing anti-trust suits, though he was often attacked in the press for it. He received legal fees from businesses he defended from $500,000 to $1 million. Mayer served as the legal adviser to the Chicago City Treasurer, occasionally also serving as adviser to the Cook County Treasurer.  At the time of his death, he was the senior partner of Mayer, Meyer, Austrian & Platt and had offices in Chicago and New York City.

Major cases
Mayer co-founded the Illinois Manufacturers' Association and served as its general counsel. In 1895, he defended the group in the Supreme Court of Illinois in Ritchie v. People, which outlawed the eight-hour workday limit for women. Likewise, he co-founded the Distiller's Securities Corporation.  Mayer oversaw the 1899 acquisition of Siemens & Halske Electric Company of America by the Electric Vehicle Company. In 1903, Mayer defended the Iroquois Theatre following the Iroquois Theatre fire. Mayer was able to convince a judge to move the case to Peoria, Illinois and successfully had the charges against theater manager Will Davis dismissed. In 1905, charges against the theater were thrown out. When Illinois courts reopened the case against Davis, he had the venue moved to Danville, Illinois. There, he convinced the judge that the city ordinances that targeted Davis were illegal. Davis was found not guilty.

Mayer led the defense of the "Beef Trust" in Swift and Company v. United States in the Supreme Court of the United States. Mayer defended the Employers' Association of Chicago against the United Brotherhood of Teamsters in the 1905 Chicago Teamsters' strike. In 1908, he defended the Mattoon City Railway Streetcar Company after an accident resulted in eighteen deaths. He led a fundraiser at the Auditorium Theater in 1916 to support Jews impoverished by World War I. He defended Charles Comiskey in 1919 during the Black Sox Scandal. Late in his life he worked with distillers to fight the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, the effort was unsuccessful, as the Supreme Court dismissed the case in 1920. He oversaw the sale of the Detroit Times to Arthur Brisbane on behalf of William Randolph Hearst in 1921.

Personal life
Mayer married Rachel Meyer in 1886; they had two daughters: Hortense and Madeline. Mayer was not active in any religious body or social club, though he did hold a membership in the Union League Club of Chicago, the Germania Club, and the Iroquois Club. He lived on Prairie Avenue in Chicago and had a second home in Boston, Massachusetts, where his children were schooled. In his free time, Mayer collected rare books and wines. He was never active in politics, though he served as a delegate to the 1920 Illinois Constitutional convention.

Mayer died in the Blackstone Hotel on August 14, 1922. At the time of his death, his estate was estimated at $25 million. He was buried in Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago. After his death, Rachel donated a large sum of money to the Northwestern University School of Law; the university dedicated Levy Mayer hall in his honor in 1926. Edgar Lee Masters wrote a biography of Mayer in 1927.

Cases argued in Supreme Court of the United States
Mayer argued the following cases in the nation's highest court:
Swan Land Cattle Co. v. Frank (1893)
New Jersey v. Anderson (1906)
Ferris v. Frohman (1912)
Keatley v. Furey (1912)
Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Co. (1919)
Rhode Island v. Palmer (1920)
Stafford v. Wallace (1922)

References

 Chicago Historical Society. "Mayer, Brown & Platt",The Encyclopedia of Chicago, The Newberry Library, The Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago, 2004.
"Levy Mayer, Famous Chicago Attorney, Dies Suddenly", Daily Jewish Courier, August 15, 1922 via  Foreign Language Press Survey, The Newberry Library.

1858 births
1922 deaths
American people of German-Jewish descent
Criminal defense lawyers
Jews and Judaism in Chicago
Lawyers from Chicago
Lawyers from Richmond, Virginia
Yale Law School alumni
Yale College alumni
19th-century American lawyers

Levy Mayer


Henricia lisa is a species of starfish in the family Echinasteridae found in deep water in the northern Atlantic Ocean.

Biology
Members of the genus Henricia are suspension feeders, and feed efficiently on phytoplankton. For this purpose, the starfishes have Tiedemann pouches at the bases of the digestive glands; these create water currents by use of flagellae. These starfishes are often found in association with sponges, benefiting from the current of water they create.

Research in the laboratory shows that Henricia lisa spawns twice a year, doing so when the temperature of the seawater rises or falls through the  range. At around this time, the starfishes have a tendency to aggregate, presumably thereby increasing their chances of breeding success. The actual release of gametes into the sea is synchronised with the phases of the moon.

Henricia lisa has an unusual breeding strategy. The females produce two types of egg; a few are retained under the body and are brooded, and these eggs are pale in colour; larger numbers of eggs are freely spawned into the water column, and these eggs are dark in colour. It is hypothesized that the extra pigment in the spawned eggs may be helpful in protecting the lipid content of the eggs and thus enhance larval survival.

References

Echinasteridae
Starfish described in 1949
Taxa named by Austin Hobart Clark

Henricia lisa


Odo or Otto, bishop of Lucca (Otto Lucensis), the bishop of Lucca from 1137, was an early patron of Peter Lombard, responsible, as a letter of Bernard of Clairvaux makes clear, for sending Peter to the schools of Paris.

Odo had spent several formative years studying in cathedral schools in the north of France. He had been impressed by the systemizing of theology expressed in the teachings of Anselm of Laon and Hugh of St Victor; his own systematic compilation along the lines of their work, Summa Sententiarum, left incomplete c1138, has survived in about twenty-five manuscripts, eight of which explicitly recognize Odo's authorship: it formed the basis of Peter's compilation.

Notes

12th-century writers in Latin
Bishops of Lucca
12th-century Italian Roman Catholic bishops
12th-century Italian writers

Odo of Lucca


Sarah Lindsay (born 1958) is an American poet from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In addition to writing the two chapbooks Bodies of Water and Insomniac's Lullabye, Lindsay has authored two books in the Grove Press Poetry Series: Primate Behavior (a National Book Award finalist) and Mount Clutter. Her work has been featured in magazines such as The Atlantic, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Parnassus, and Yale Review. Lindsay has been awarded with the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize. Her third book of poetry, Twigs and Knucklebones (Copper Canyon Press, 2008), was selected as a "Favorite Book of 2008" by Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine. Her most recent book of poems is Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower (Copper Canyon Press, 2013) was a 2013 Lannan Literary Selection.

Lindsay graduated from St. Olaf College with a B.A. in English and creative writing, and holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, and works as a copy editor at Pace Communications.

Works
 Debt to the Bone-Eating Snotflower (Copper Canyon Press, 2013)
 Twigs and Knucklebones (Copper Canyon Press, 2008)
 Mount Clutter (Grove Press, 2002)
 Primate Behavior (Grove Press, 1997)
 Insomniac's Lullabye
 Bodies of Water

References

Living people
1958 births
American women poets
St. Olaf College alumni
University of North Carolina at Greensboro alumni
20th-century American poets
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American women

Sarah Lindsay


The Cattaraugus Cutlery Company began as the New York distribution company J.B.F. Champlin and Son, founded by John Brown Francis Champlin and his son Tint in 1882. The Champlins expanded into knife production, and along with William R. Case and his brothers, they formed Cattaraugus Cutlery in 1886, based in Little Valley. The company hired expert cutlers from Germany, England, and other U.S. manufacturers, to produce high quality cutlery, and purchased knife-making equipment from the defunct Beaver Falls Cutlery Company. Admiral Byrd selected Cattaraugus knives to take on his expedition to the South Pole.

Over time, the Case family separated from Cattaraugus to form W. R. Case & Sons Cutlery Co., incorporated in 1905. Cattaraugus closed business in 1963. Two separate fires destroyed the building in August 2015 and August 2016; it had stood for several decades vacant (another business occupied the factory's office building, which remains standing, for a time in the 1970s) and had fallen into severe disrepair by the time of the first fire.

Notes

References
Case History. Case Pocket Knives. 2002. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
"Take Cattaraugus" Explorers Advised Admiral Byrd. Advertisement. Cattaraugus Cutlery Company.
Place, Rich (August 7, 2015). "Former Cattaraugus Cutlery Co. building goes up in flames." Salamanca Press. Retrieved August 8, 2015.

Further reading
Ritchie, Roy and Ron Stewart. Cattaraugus Cutlery Co.: Identification and Values. Collector Books. 1999.

Knife manufacturing companies
Companies based in Cattaraugus County, New York
Manufacturing companies established in 1886
Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1963
1886 establishments in New York (state)
1963 disestablishments in New York (state)
Defunct manufacturing companies based in New York (state)

Cattaraugus Cutlery Company


The 2010 Macau transfer of sovereignty anniversary protest (2010年澳門回歸示威遊行) occurred on December 20, 2010 on the 11th anniversary of the transfer of sovereignty over Macau.  The protest took place on the same date as the handover anniversary in 1999.  The protesters mainly complained about universal suffrage, housing prices and how the Macau citizens are treated worse than the pandas given to them by Beijing.

Protest
The protest initially started with the Macau pro-democracy camp and members of the labor union.  The march went from Iao Hon Park to the government offices shouting slogans and waving banners.  The theme was to fight against Macau Government corruption, fight for democracy and to improve livelihood. (反貪腐、爭民主、保民生).  About 1,200 to 1,300 people participated wearing panda masks.

In December 2010 Beijing central government sent two pandas to Macau for good will.  The names of the two pandas are hoi hoi (開開) and sum sum (心心), meaning "happy" (開心) in Chinese.  The Macau government has already arranged a million dollar luxury home for the pandas, while the people are neglected in unaffordable bad public housing.  The 3,000m2 panda pavilion at Seac Pai Van Park in Coloane Island is budgeted at 80-90 million patacas (about US$10,000,000).

More criticism followed that the pandas should be called po po (普普) and syun syun (選選), meaning "universal suffrage" (普選).  Others called for affordable housing and universal suffrage for the 2019 Macau chief executive election.  Chief executive Fernando Chui was accused of ignoring high inflation and rocketing home prices.

Reactions
Fernando Chiu responded saying livelihood is his prime concern and he does listen to the demands and views of the public.  Meanwhile, previous Macau chief Edmund Ho won the Grand lotus award.

See also
 2007 Macau transfer of sovereignty anniversary protest
 2010 Macau labour protest

References

2010 in Macau
Macau transfer of sovereignty anniversary
Protests in Macau


On 11 April 2017, the tour bus of the German football team Borussia Dortmund was attacked with roadside bombs in Dortmund, Germany. Three bombs exploded as the bus ferried the team to the Westfalenstadion for the first leg of their quarter-final against Monaco in the UEFA Champions League. One of the team's players, Marc Bartra, and a policeman were wounded, but the strengthened windows of the bus prevented casualties.

On 21 April 2017, German police arrested a man on suspicion of planting bombs to drive down the Borussia Dortmund share price and profit by put warrants he bought prior to the attack.

Bombing
The team bus of Borussia Dortmund was attacked with three homemade pipe bombs while on its way to Westfalenstadion in Dortmund. The bombs were hidden in hedges by the roadside and detonated at around 19:15 local time (17:15 UTC). They were packed with sharp metal pins and had a reach of about 100 meters (109 yards). Based on the type of detonator and explosive involved, German authorities assumed it was a "terrorist involvement". The bombs used military detonators and the explosives may have come from military stocks. Spanish footballer and Dortmund's team member Marc Bartra was wounded by shards of glass from the shattered bus window; he was taken to a nearby hospital where his right wrist was immediately operated on. A policeman suffered blast injury and shock; he was escorting the bus on a motorcycle. It is considered very likely that without the strength of the bus that there would have been mass casualties.

At the time, the bus was on its way to the first leg of Borussia Dortmund's 2016–17 UEFA Champions League quarter-final against Monaco at the Signal Iduna Park; the match was rescheduled for the following day, which they lost 3–2.

Investigation
The German police and state lawyers treated the bombing as attempted murder and a planned attack on Borussia Dortmund. There were three claims of responsibility: one left at the scene claiming an Islamist motive, one posted on the internet claiming an 'anti-fascist' motive (which was deemed to be fake), and one later sent to a newspaper claiming a far-right motive. The German Federal Prosecutor's Office initially called the attack an act of terrorism with possible Islamist involvement. The Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia called the attack "professional". Police investigated whether it was an attack by Islamists, by the far-left or by the far-right. According to German media at the time, investigators also considered whether a foreign security service was behind the bombing.

Claims of responsibility
There were three differing claims of responsibility. The first claim was found in three identical letters left at the scene. The letters said the attack was retaliation for German military intervention against Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, accusing it of being responsible for killing Muslims. It demanded that the US military base in Ramstein be shut down and the German Tornado jets be withdrawn from Syria. It threatened further attacks on non-Muslim celebrities in Germany unless the demands are met. The letters were seen as unusual, as previous ISIS-linked attacks in Europe did not come with such confessions. Unlike previous video claims of responsibility, the letters directly addressed the German chancellor and had no religious justifications, ISIS logo, or signature. German newspapers later reported that investigators had "significant doubts" over the letters' authenticity, and suggested they may have been written to frame Islamists.

Another claim was posted on the left-wing, open-publishing website IndyMedia. Initially there were claims that the Borussia Dortmund supporter's groups were infiltrated by neo-Nazi sympathizers which in the beginning, people believed could have led to the terrorist attacks. It said the attack was committed because Borussia Dortmund did not do enough against racists and Nazis, who are believed to have some involvement in the club's supporter groups. The claim was removed as fake, and police also treated it as fake.

A few days later, a third claim of responsibility was sent to the newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, which hinted at a far-right motive. The anonymous e-mail praised Adolf Hitler and attacked multiculturalism, adding that the attack was a "last warning". A spokeswoman for the federal prosecutors said the claim was being investigated. The letter also threatened another attack on protesters who plan to demonstrate against the Alternative for Germany party's conference in Cologne on 22 April. Police also considered the possibility that the attack was carried out by the far-right in order to incite backlash against Muslims.

Suspects

In the initial stage of the investigation, the police identified two suspects and arrested one of them. The apartments of both suspects were searched for clues. The arrested suspect was an Iraqi immigrant living in Wuppertal and was suspected of being an Islamist extremist. Police believed he led an ISIS unit in Iraq involved in killings, kidnappings, smuggling, and extortion. However, police later concluded he was not responsible for the Dortmund bombing.

On 21 April 2017, the federal prosecutor announced that it had arrested a 28-year-old German-Russian citizen, identified as Sergej Wenergold, on suspicion of 20-fold attempted murder, bringing about an illegal detonation of explosives, and aggravated battery. The man had been staying at the Borussia team hotel. He planted explosives along the road where the team bus would later leave to the stadium. During check-in, he chose a room with a window facing the road so he would be able to remotely trigger the explosion when the bus passed by. It was revealed that on the day of the attack, he had bought put warrants for €78,000 from an investment bank using the internet connection in his hotel room. Put warrants are derivatives that increase in value as the underlying security drops in price, a mechanism similar to short-selling. They would have made him a large profit of up to €3.9 million if Dortmund's share price had indeed plummeted after a successful attack, but it only dropped by 5% after the attack and later recovered. The unusual transaction raised suspicion of money laundering with bank employees, prompting them to alert authorities and pass to them the identity of Wenergold, which led to his arrest. Police also said the suspect left letters at the scene of the crime to frame Islamic terrorists for the attack. The Atlantic criticized that the general public were too quick to blame Islamic extremists despite authorities challenging the veracity of the letters, and said the suspect belonged to a new category of extremism that they called "terrorism for profit", The Guardian called it "terror fuelled by financial greed".

Trial
Sergej Wenergold was charged with 28 counts of attempted murder for the attack. He admitted during the trial that he learned how to make the bomb on Google. He also said that he intentionally put less materials in the bomb than suggested on Google so that way he would not kill them. He used three pipe-made bombs in his attack. Marc Bartra, a defender for Borussia Dortmund, testified at the trial of Sergej and saying that he feared for his life as the bomb blew up and injured him. Bartra in the attack suffered a fractured wrist and had to spend five days in the hospital in the aftermath of the attack. Sergej had tried to apologize to Bartra during the trial, however, Bartra would not acknowledge his attacker as he discussed how his life had been altered by the bombing of the team bus. German prosecutors in court argued that Wenergold should be sentenced to life in prison for his actions. Wenergold argued that he did not mean to kill anyone with his attack but the prosecutors argued that it was not true and that he intended to kill as many Dortmund members as possible. In November 2018, Sergej Wenergold was sentenced to 14 years in prison for his attack on the Borussia Dortmund team bus.

Aftermath
The match was postponed until the following day at 18:45 local time (16:45 UTC), which resulted in a 3–2 win for Monaco. While Borussia Dortmund wanted the game to be postponed more than one day, UEFA pushed for the game to be played regardless or they would have to forfeit. After consulting with the players, Borussia Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke announced that the team had agreed to play. However, Thomas Tuchel, the team's manager complained publicly that the decision was forced upon them. There is a belief that this spat was the beginning of the end of Tuchel's tenure as manager of Borussia Dortmund, despite the team's victory in the DFB-Pokal at the end of the season. Both Monaco and Dortmund fans united in friendship after the bombing. Many Dortmund fans, Germans and local hotels offered Monaco fans free food and places to stay for the night. Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel expressed her appalled reaction to the attack. The staff of Borussia Dortmund and former football player Lothar Matthäus criticized the short-term planning of UEFA.

References

Terrorist incidents in Germany in 2017
team bus bombing
2016–17 in German football
April 2017 events in Germany
21st century in Dortmund
2016–17 UEFA Champions League
April 2017 crimes in Europe
Improvised explosive device bombings in Germany
Bus bombings in Europe
Politics and sports
False flag operations
Anti-Islamic forgeries
Financial crimes
Attacks in Europe in 2017
2017 crimes in Germany
Accidents and incidents involving sports teams

Borussia Dortmund team bus bombing


Washakie is a ghost town in far northern Box Elder County, Utah, United States. Lying some  southeast of Portage, it was established in 1880 by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) for the settlement of the Northwestern Shoshone. The Washakie Indian Farm was home to the main body of this Native American band through most of the 20th century. By the mid-1970s, Washakie's residents were gone and the property sold to a private ranching operation. Today the tribal reservation consists of a small tract containing the Washakie cemetery, and the tribe is seeking to acquire more of the surrounding land. The old LDS chapel in Washakie is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Geography
The Washakie site is located in the southern part of the narrow Malad Valley, near the Idaho border and is approximately  north of Brigham City. To the east lie the Malad River, Interstate 15, and the Clarkston Mountains section of Caribou National Forest. To the west are the desolate West Hills. Just to the north sits the small town of Portage, and to the south is the Nucor steel bar mill, west of Plymouth.

History
The Bear River Massacre of 1863 left only some 1250 Northwestern Shoshone alive. After the 1867 establishment of Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Idaho, most moved to the reservation. Two small bands led by the chiefs Sanpitch and Sagwitch stayed in northern Utah. After a few years of attempting to continue their traditional nomadic lifeways, Sagwitch's people converted to Mormonism in 1873 and expressed a desire to learn sedentary agriculture. In 1874, George Washington Hill, the missionary who had baptized the Northwestern Shoshone, started a farm for them near Franklin, Idaho. At the end of the year, LDS Church leaders decided to close this farm and find a better location the next year.

Over the next five years, two more Indian farms were established in Utah on the Bear River, first on the outskirts of Bear River City, then at a place called Lemuel's Garden, in the area of present-day Collinston. Both farms made progress, but water was often insufficient for irrigation, and the missionaries assigned to help Hill train the new farmers were frequently absent. Harvests could not support the farm residents, let alone the frequent visitors from Fort Hall. Each winter the missionaries would return to their families, and most of the Shoshone would return to the Promontory Mountains and their other traditional winter grounds in search of food.

In 1880, leaders of the LDS Church purchased a  farm south of Portage from the Brigham City Cooperative, along with the unfinished Samaria Canal. The canal was to supply irrigation water from Samaria Lake in Idaho, since the Malad River was too alkaline for watering crops. The church began encouraging the Shoshone to move to the new location, which was named after Chief Washakie.

From 1903 to 1929 Washakie fielded a baseball team which competed with white teams in northern Utah and southern Idaho, and received considerable local attention from both white and Indian press outlets.

See also

 List of ghost towns in Utah

References

External links

Ghost towns in Box Elder County, Utah
Shoshone
Ghost towns in Utah
Populated places established in 1880
1880 establishments in Utah Territory

Washakie, Utah


Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental and behavioral disorder in which an individual has intrusive thoughts (an obsession) and feels the need to perform certain routines (compulsions) repeatedly to relieve the distress caused by the obsession, to the extent where it impairs general function.

Obsessions are persistent unwanted thoughts, mental images, or urges that generate feelings of anxiety, disgust, or discomfort. Some common obsessions include fear of contamination, obsession with symmetry, the fear of acting blasphemously, the sufferer's sexual orientation, and the fear of possibly harming others or themselves. Compulsions are repeated actions or routines that occur in response to obsessions to achieve a relief from anxiety. Common compulsions include excessive hand washing, cleaning, counting, ordering, avoiding triggers, hoarding, neutralizing, seeking assurance, praying, and checking things. People with OCD may only perform mental compulsions, this is called primarily obsessional obsessive–compulsive disorder (Pure O). Many adults with OCD are aware that their compulsions do not make sense, but they perform them anyway to relieve the distress caused by obsessions. Compulsions occur often, typically taking up at least one hour per day and impairing one's quality of life. Compulsions cause relief in the moment, but cause obsessions to grow over time. More than three million Americans suffer from OCD. According to Mercy, approximately 1 in 40 U.S. adults and 1 in 100 U.S. children have OCD.

The cause of OCD is unknown. There appear to be some genetic components, and it is more likely for both identical twins to be affected than both fraternal twins. Risk factors include a history of child abuse or other stress-inducing events; some cases have occurred after streptococcal infections. Diagnosis is based on presented symptoms and requires ruling out other drug-related or medical causes; rating scales such as the Yale–Brown Obsessive–Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) assess severity. Other disorders with similar symptoms include generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, eating disorders, tic disorders, and obsessive–compulsive personality disorder. The condition is also associated with a general increase in suicidality.

OCD is chronic and long-lasting with periods of severe symptoms followed by periods of improvement. Treatment can improve ability to function and quality of life. Treatment for OCD may involve psychotherapy such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), pharmacotherapy such as antidepressants, or surgical procedures such as deep brain stimulation. CBT increases exposure to obsessions and prevents compulsions, while metacognitive therapy encourages ritual behaviors to alter the relationship to one's thoughts about them. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are a common antidepressant used to treat OCD. SSRIs are more effective when used in excess of the recommended depression dosage; however, higher doses can increase side effect intensity. Commonly used SSRIs include sertraline, fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, paroxetine, citalopram, and escitalopram. Some patients fail to improve after taking the maximum tolerated dose of multiple SSRIs for at least two months; these cases qualify as treatment-resistant and can require second-line treatment such as clomipramine or atypical antipsychotic augmentation. Surgery may be used as a final resort in the most severe or treatment-resistant cases, though most procedures are considered experimental due to the limited literature on their side effects.

Obsessive–compulsive disorder affects about 2.3% of people at some point in their lives, while rates during any given year are about 1.2%. It is unusual for symptoms to begin after age 35, and around 50% of patients experience detrimental effects to daily life before age 20. Males and females are affected equally, and OCD occurs worldwide. The phrase obsessive–compulsive is sometimes used in an informal manner unrelated to OCD to describe someone as excessively meticulous, perfectionistic, absorbed, or otherwise fixated. However, the actual disorder is not characterized by that, and many individuals with OCD may be dirty, unclean, or uncaring about disease/symmetry.

Signs and symptoms
OCD can present with a wide variety of symptoms. Certain groups of symptoms usually occur together; these groups are sometimes viewed as dimensions, or clusters, which may reflect an underlying process. The standard assessment tool for OCD, the Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), has 13 predefined categories of symptoms. These symptoms fit into three to five groupings. A meta-analytic review of symptom structures found a four-factor grouping structure to be most reliable: a symmetry factor, a forbidden thoughts factor, a cleaning factor, and a hoarding factor. The symmetry factor correlates highly with obsessions related to ordering, counting, and symmetry, as well as repeating compulsions. The forbidden thoughts factor correlates highly with intrusive thoughts of a violent, religious, or sexual nature. The cleaning factor correlates highly with obsessions about contamination and compulsions related to cleaning. The hoarding factor only involves hoarding-related obsessions and compulsions, and was identified as being distinct from other symptom groupings.

When looking into the onset of OCD, one study suggests that there are differences in the age of onset between males and females. In children, a study found the average age of onset of OCD to be 9.6 for male children and 11.0 for female children. When looking at both adults and children a study found the average ages of onset to be 21 and 24 for males and females respectively. Looking at women specifically, a different study suggested that 62% of participants found that their symptoms worsened at a premenstrual age. Across the board, all demographics and studies showed a mean age of onset of less than 25.

Some OCD subtypes have been associated with improvement in performance on certain tasks, such as pattern recognition (washing subtype) and spatial working memory (obsessive thought subtype). Subgroups have also been distinguished by neuroimaging findings and treatment response, though neuroimaging studies have not been comprehensive enough to draw conclusions. Subtype-dependent treatment response has been studied, and the hoarding subtype has consistently been least responsive to treatment.

While OCD is considered a homogeneous disorder from a neuropsychological perspective, many of the symptoms may be the result of comorbid disorders. For example, adults with OCD have exhibited more symptoms of attention–deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) than adults without OCD.

In regards to the cause of onset, researchers asked participants in one study what they felt was responsible for triggering the initial onset of their illness. 29% of patients answered that there was an environmental factor in their life that did so. Specifically, the majority of participants who answered with that noted their environmental factor to be related to an increased responsibility.

Obsessions

Obsessions are stress-inducing thoughts that recur and persist, despite efforts to ignore or confront them. People with OCD frequently perform tasks, or compulsions, to seek relief from obsession-related anxiety. Within and among individuals, initial obsessions vary in clarity and vividness. A relatively vague obsession could involve a general sense of disarray or tension, accompanied by a belief that life cannot proceed as normal while the imbalance remains. A more intense obsession could be a preoccupation with the thought or image of a close family member or friend dying, or intrusive thoughts related to relationship rightness. Other obsessions concern the possibility that someone or something other than oneself—such as God, the devil, or disease—will harm either the patient or the people or things the patient cares about. Others with OCD may experience the sensation of invisible protrusions emanating from their bodies, or feel that inanimate objects are ensouled.

Some people with OCD experience sexual obsessions that may involve intrusive thoughts or images of "kissing, touching, fondling, oral sex, anal sex, intercourse, incest, and rape" with "strangers, acquaintances, parents, children, family members, friends, coworkers, animals, and religious figures," and can include heterosexual or homosexual contact with people of any age. Similar to other intrusive thoughts or images, some disquieting sexual thoughts are normal at times, but people with OCD may attach extraordinary significance to such thoughts. For example, obsessive fears about sexual orientation can appear to the affected individual, and even to those around them, as a crisis of sexual identity. Furthermore, the doubt that accompanies OCD leads to uncertainty regarding whether one might act on the troubling thoughts, resulting in self-criticism or self-loathing.

Most people with OCD understand that their thoughts do not correspond with reality; however, they feel that they must act as though these ideas are correct or realistic. For example, someone who engages in compulsive hoarding might be inclined to treat inorganic matter as if it had the sentience or rights of living organisms, despite accepting that such behavior is irrational on an intellectual level. There is debate as to whether hoarding should be considered an independent syndrome from OCD.

Compulsions

Some people with OCD perform compulsive rituals because they inexplicably feel that they must do so, while others act compulsively to mitigate the anxiety that stems from obsessive thoughts. The affected individual might feel that these actions will either prevent a dreaded event from occurring, or push the event from their thoughts. In any case, their reasoning is so idiosyncratic or distorted that it results in significant distress, either personally, or for those around the affected individual. Excessive skin picking, hair pulling, nail biting, and other body-focused repetitive behavior disorders are all on the obsessive–compulsive spectrum. Some individuals with OCD are aware that their behaviors are not rational, but they feel compelled to follow through with them to fend off feelings of panic or dread. Furthermore, compulsions often stem from memory distrust, a symptom of OCD characterized by insecurity in one's skills in perception, attention, and memory, even in cases where there is no clear evidence of a deficit.

Common compulsions may include hand washing, cleaning, checking things (such as locks on doors), repeating actions (such as repeatedly turning on and off switches), ordering items in a certain way, and requesting reassurance. Although some individuals perform actions repeatedly, they do not necessarily perform these actions compulsively; for example, morning or nighttime routines and religious practices are not usually compulsions. Whether behaviors qualify as compulsions or mere habit depends on the context in which they are performed. For instance, arranging and ordering books for eight hours a day would be expected of someone who works in a library, but this routine would seem abnormal in other situations. In other words, habits tend to bring efficiency to one's life, while compulsions tend to disrupt it. Furthermore, compulsions are different from tics (such as touching, tapping, rubbing, or blinking) and stereotyped movements (such as head banging, body rocking, or self-biting), which are usually not as complex and not precipitated by obsessions. It can sometimes be difficult to tell the difference between compulsions and complex tics, and about 10–40% of people with OCD also have a lifetime tic disorder.

People with OCD rely on compulsions as an escape from their obsessive thoughts; however, they are aware that relief is only temporary, and that intrusive thoughts will return. Some affected individuals use compulsions to avoid situations that may trigger obsessions. Compulsions may be actions directly related to the obsession, such as someone obsessed with contamination compulsively washing their hands, but they can be unrelated as well. In addition to experiencing the anxiety and fear that typically accompanies OCD, affected individuals may spend hours performing compulsions every day. In such situations, it can become difficult for the person to fulfill their work, familial, or social roles. These behaviors can also cause adverse physical symptoms; for example, people who obsessively wash their hands with antibacterial soap and hot water can make their skin red and raw with dermatitis.

Individuals with OCD often use rationalizations to explain their behavior; however, these rationalizations do not apply to the behavioral pattern, but to each individual occurrence. For example, someone compulsively checking the front door may argue that the time and stress associated with one check is less than the time and stress associated with being robbed, and checking is consequently the better option. This reasoning often occurs in a cyclical manner, and can continue for as long as the affected person needs it to in order to feel safe.

In cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), OCD patients are asked to overcome intrusive thoughts by not indulging in any compulsions. They are taught that rituals keep OCD strong, while not performing them causes OCD to become weaker. This position is supported by the pattern of memory distrust; the more often compulsions are repeated, the more weakened memory trust becomes, and this cycle continues as memory distrust increases compulsion frequency. For body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRB) such as trichotillomania (hair pulling), skin picking, and onychophagia (nail biting), behavioral interventions such as habit reversal training and decoupling are recommended for the treatment of compulsive behaviors.

OCD sometimes manifests without overt compulsions, which may be termed "primarily obsessional OCD." OCD without overt compulsions could, by one estimate, characterize as many as 50–60% of OCD cases.

Insight and overvalued ideation
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), identifies a continuum for the level of insight in OCD, ranging from good insight (the least severe) to no insight (the most severe). Good or fair insight is characterized by the acknowledgment that obsessive–compulsive beliefs are not or may not be true, while poor insight, in the middle of the continuum, is characterized by the belief that obsessive–compulsive beliefs are probably true. The absence of insight altogether, in which the individual is completely convinced that their beliefs are true, is also identified as a delusional thought pattern, and occurs in about 4% of people with OCD. When cases of OCD with no insight become severe, affected individuals have an unshakable belief in the reality of their delusions, which can make their cases difficult to differentiate from psychotic disorders.

Some people with OCD exhibit what is known as overvalued ideas, ideas that are abnormal compared to affected individuals' respective cultures, and more treatment-resistant than most negative thoughts and obsessions. After some discussion, it is possible to convince the individual that their fears are unfounded. It may be more difficult to practice exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP) on such people, as they may be unwilling to cooperate, at least initially. Similar to how insight is identified on a continuum, obsessive-compulsive beliefs are characterized on a spectrum, ranging from obsessive doubt to delusional conviction. In the United States, overvalued ideation (OVI) is considered most akin to poor insight—especially when considering belief strength as one of an idea's key identifiers—but European qualifications have historically been broader. Furthermore, severe and frequent overvalued ideas are considered similar to idealized values, which are so rigidly held by, and so important to affected individuals, that they end up becoming a defining identity. In adolescent OCD patients, OVI is considered a severe symptom.

Historically, OVI has been thought to be linked to poorer treatment outcome in patients with OCD, but it is currently considered a poor indicator of prognosis. The Overvalued Ideas Scale (OVIS) has been developed as a reliable quantitative method of measuring levels of OVI in patients with OCD, and research has suggested that overvalued ideas are more stable for those with more extreme OVIS scores.

Cognitive performance
Though OCD was once believed to be associated with above-average intelligence, this does not appear to necessarily be the case. A 2013 review reported that people with OCD may sometimes have mild but wide-ranging cognitive deficits, most significantly those affecting spatial memory and to a lesser extent with verbal memory, fluency, executive function, and processing speed, while auditory attention was not significantly affected. People with OCD show impairment in formulating an organizational strategy for coding information, set-shifting, and motor and cognitive inhibition.

Specific subtypes of symptom dimensions in OCD have been associated with specific cognitive deficits. For example, the results of one meta-analysis comparing washing and checking symptoms reported that washers outperformed checkers on eight out of ten cognitive tests. The symptom dimension of contamination and cleaning may be associated with higher scores on tests of inhibition and verbal memory.

Children
Approximately 1–2% of children are affected by OCD. Obsessive–compulsive disorder symptoms tend to develop more frequently in children 10–14 years of age, with males displaying symptoms at an earlier age, and at a more severe level than females. In children, symptoms can be grouped into at least four types, including sporadic and tic-related OCD.

Associated conditions
People with OCD may be diagnosed with other conditions as well, such as obsessive–compulsive personality disorder, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, anorexia nervosa, social anxiety disorder, bulimia nervosa, Tourette syndrome, transformation obsession, ASD, ADHD, dermatillomania, body dysmorphic disorder, and trichotillomania. More than 50% of people with OCD experience suicidal tendencies, and 15% have attempted suicide. Depression, anxiety, and prior suicide attempts increase the risk of future suicide attempts.

It has been found that between 18 and 34% of females currently experiencing OCD scored positively on an inventory measuring disordered eating. Another study found that 7% are likely to have an eating disorder, while another found that fewer than 5% of males have OCD and an eating disorder.

Individuals with OCD have also been found to be affected by delayed sleep phase disorder at a substantially higher rate than the general public. Moreover, severe OCD symptoms are consistently associated with greater sleep disturbance. Reduced total sleep time and sleep efficiency have been observed in people with OCD, with delayed sleep onset and offset.

Some research has demonstrated a link between drug addiction and OCD. For example, there is a higher risk of drug addiction among those with any anxiety disorder, likely as a way of coping with the heightened levels of anxiety. However, drug addiction among people with OCD may be a compulsive behavior. Depression is also extremely prevalent among people with OCD. One explanation for the high depression rate among OCD populations was posited by Mineka, Watson, and Clark (1998), who explained that people with OCD, or any other anxiety disorder, may feel "out of control".

Someone exhibiting OCD signs does not necessarily have OCD. Behaviors that present as obsessive–compulsive can also be found in a number of other conditions, including obsessive–compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), or disorders in which perseveration is a possible feature (ADHD, PTSD, bodily disorders, or stereotyped behaviors). Some cases of OCD present symptoms typically associated with Tourette syndrome, such as compulsions that may appear to resemble motor tics; this has been termed tic-related OCD or Tourettic OCD.

OCD frequently occurs comorbidly with both bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder. Between 60 and 80% of those with OCD experience a major depressive episode in their lifetime. Comorbidity rates have been reported at between 19 and 90%, as a result of methodological differences. Between 9–35% of those with bipolar disorder also have OCD, compared to 1–2% in the general population. About 50% of those with OCD experience cyclothymic traits or hypomanic episodes. OCD is also associated with anxiety disorders. Lifetime comorbidity for OCD has been reported at 22% for specific phobia, 18% for social anxiety disorder, 12% for panic disorder, and 30% for generalized anxiety disorder. The comorbidity rate for OCD and ADHD has been reported to be as high as 51%.

Causes

The cause of OCD is unknown. Both environmental and genetic factors are believed to play a role. Risk factors include a history of Adverse Childhood Experiences or other stress-inducing events.

Drug-induced OCD
Some medications and other drugs, such as methamphetamine or cocaine, can induce obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in people without previous symptoms.

Some atypical antipsychotics (second-generation antipsychotics) such as olanzapine (Zyprexa) and clozapine (Clozaril) can induce OCD in people, particularly individuals with schizophrenia.

Genetics
There appear to be some genetic components of OCD causation, with identical twins more often affected than fraternal twins. Furthermore, individuals with OCD are more likely to have first-degree family members exhibiting the same disorders than matched controls. In cases in which OCD develops during childhood, there is a much stronger familial link in the disorder than with cases in which OCD develops later in adulthood. In general, genetic factors account for 45–65% of the variability in OCD symptoms in children diagnosed with the disorder. A 2007 study found evidence supporting the possibility of a heritable risk for OCD.

Research has found there to be a genetic correlation between anorexia nervosa and OCD, suggesting a strong etiology. First and second hand relatives of probands with OCD have a greater risk of developing anorexia nervosa as genetic relatedness increases.

A mutation has been found in the human serotonin transporter gene hSERT in unrelated families with OCD.

A systematic review found that while neither allele was associated with OCD overall, in Caucasians, the L allele was associated with OCD. Another meta-analysis observed an increased risk in those with the homozygous S allele, but found the LS genotype to be inversely associated with OCD.

A genome-wide association study found OCD to be linked with single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) near BTBD3, and two SNPs in DLGAP1 in a trio-based analysis, but no SNP reached significance when analyzed with case-control data.

One meta-analysis found a small but significant association between a polymorphism in SLC1A1 and OCD.

The relationship between OCD and Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) has been inconsistent, with one meta-analysis reporting a significant association, albeit only in men, and another meta analysis reporting no association.

It has been postulated by evolutionary psychologists that moderate versions of compulsive behavior may have had evolutionary advantages. Examples would be moderate constant checking of hygiene, the hearth, or the environment for enemies. Similarly, hoarding may have had evolutionary advantages. In this view, OCD may be the extreme statistical tail of such behaviors, possibly the result of a high number of predisposing genes.

Brain structure and functioning
Imaging studies have shown differences in the frontal cortex and subcortical structures of the brain in patients with OCD. There appears to be a connection between the OCD symptoms and abnormalities in certain areas of the brain, but such a connection is not clear. Some people with OCD have areas of unusually high activity in their brain, or low levels of the chemical serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter that some nerve cells use to communicate with each other, and is thought to be involved in regulating many functions, influencing emotions, mood, memory, and sleep.

Autoimmune
A controversial hypothesis is that some cases of rapid onset of OCD in children and adolescents may be caused by a syndrome connected to Group A streptococcal infections (GABHS), known as pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections (PANDAS). OCD and tic disorders are hypothesized to arise in a subset of children as a result of a post-streptococcal autoimmune process. The PANDAS hypothesis is unconfirmed and unsupported by data, and two new categories have been proposed: PANS (pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome) and CANS (childhood acute neuropsychiatric syndrome). The CANS and PANS hypotheses include different possible mechanisms underlying acute-onset neuropsychiatric conditions, but do not exclude GABHS infections as a cause in a subset of individuals. PANDAS, PANS, and CANS are the focus of clinical and laboratory research, but remain unproven. Whether PANDAS is a distinct entity differing from other cases of tic disorders or OCD is debated.

A review of studies examining anti-basal ganglia antibodies in OCD found an increased risk of having anti-basal ganglia antibodies in those with OCD versus the general population.

Environment
OCD may be more common in people who have been bullied, abused, or neglected, and it sometimes starts after a significant life event, such as childbirth or bereavement. It has been reported in some studies that there is a connection between childhood trauma and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. More research is needed to understand this relationship better.

Mechanisms

Neuroimaging

Functional neuroimaging during symptom provocation has observed abnormal activity in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), right premotor cortex, left superior temporal gyrus, globus pallidus externus, hippocampus, and right uncus. Weaker foci of abnormal activity were found in the left caudate, posterior cingulate cortex, and superior parietal lobule. However, an older meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging in OCD reported that the only consistent functional neuroimaging finding was increased activity in the orbital gyrus and head of the caudate nucleus, while anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activation abnormalities were too inconsistent.

A meta-analysis comparing affective and nonaffective tasks observed differences with controls in regions implicated in salience, habit, goal-directed behavior, self-referential thinking, and cognitive control. For nonaffective tasks, hyperactivity was observed in the insula, ACC, and head of the caudate/putamen, while hypoactivity was observed in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and posterior caudate. Affective tasks were observed to relate to increased activation in the precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex, while decreased activation was found in the pallidum, ventral anterior thalamus, and posterior caudate. The involvement of the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical loop in OCD, as well as the high rates of comorbidity between OCD and ADHD, have led some to draw a link in their mechanism. Observed similarities include dysfunction of the anterior cingulate cortex and prefrontal cortex, as well as shared deficits in executive functions. The involvement of the orbitofrontal cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in OCD is shared with bipolar disorder, and may explain the high degree of comorbidity. Decreased volumes of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex related to executive function has also been observed in OCD.

People with OCD evince increased grey matter volumes in bilateral lenticular nuclei, extending to the caudate nuclei, with decreased grey matter volumes in bilateral dorsal medial frontal/anterior cingulate gyri. These findings contrast with those in people with other anxiety disorders, who evince decreased (rather than increased) grey matter volumes in bilateral lenticular/caudate nuclei, as well as decreased grey matter volumes in bilateral dorsal medial frontal/anterior cingulate gyri. Increased white matter volume and decreased fractional anisotropy in anterior midline tracts has been observed in OCD, possibly indicating increased fiber crossings.

Cognitive models

Generally, two categories of models for OCD have been postulated. The first category involves deficits in executive dysfunction and is based on the observed structural and functional abnormalities in the dlPFC, striatum and thalamus. The second category involves dysfunctional modulatory control and primarily relies on observed functional and structural differences in the ACC, mPFC, and OFC.

One proposed model suggests that dysfunction in the OFC leads to improper valuation of behaviors and decreased behavioral control, while the observed alterations in amygdala activations leads to exaggerated fears and representations of negative stimuli.

Due to the heterogeneity of OCD symptoms, studies differentiating various symptoms have been performed. Symptom-specific neuroimaging abnormalities include the hyperactivity of caudate and ACC in checking rituals, while finding increased activity of cortical and cerebellar regions in contamination-related symptoms. Neuroimaging differentiating content of intrusive thoughts has found differences between aggressive as opposed to taboo thoughts, finding increased connectivity of the amygdala, ventral striatum, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex in aggressive symptoms, while observing increased connectivity between the ventral striatum and insula in sexual or religious intrusive thoughts.

Another model proposes that affective dysregulation links excessive reliance on habit-based action selection with compulsions. This is supported by the observation that those with OCD demonstrate decreased activation of the ventral striatum when anticipating monetary reward, as well as increased functional connectivity between the VS and the OFC. Furthermore, those with OCD demonstrate reduced performance in Pavlovian fear-extinction tasks, hyperresponsiveness in the amygdala to fearful stimuli, and hyporesponsiveness in the amygdala when exposed to positively valanced stimuli. Stimulation of the nucleus accumbens has also been observed to effectively alleviate both obsessions and compulsions, supporting the role of affective dysregulation in generating both.

Neurobiological

From the observation of the efficacy of antidepressants in OCD, a serotonin hypothesis of OCD has been formulated. Studies of peripheral markers of serotonin, as well as challenges with proserotonergic compounds have yielded inconsistent results, including evidence pointing towards basal hyperactivity of serotonergic systems. Serotonin receptor and transporter binding studies have yielded conflicting results, including higher and lower serotonin receptor 5-HT2A and serotonin transporter binding potentials that were normalized by treatment with SSRIs. Despite inconsistencies in the types of abnormalities found, evidence points towards dysfunction of serotonergic systems in OCD. Orbitofrontal cortex overactivity is attenuated in people who have successfully responded to SSRI medication, a result believed to be caused by increased stimulation of serotonin receptors 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C.

A complex relationship between dopamine and OCD has been observed. Although antipsychotics, which act by antagonizing dopamine receptors, may improve some cases of OCD, they frequently exacerbate others. Antipsychotics, in the low doses used to treat OCD, may actually increase the release of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex, through inhibiting autoreceptors. Further complicating things is the efficacy of amphetamines, decreased dopamine transporter activity observed in OCD, and low levels of D2 binding in the striatum. Furthermore, increased dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens after deep brain stimulation correlates with improvement in symptoms, pointing to reduced dopamine release in the striatum playing a role in generating symptoms.

Abnormalities in glutamatergic neurotransmission have been implicated in OCD. Findings such as increased cerebrospinal glutamate, less consistent abnormalities observed in neuroimaging studies, and the efficacy of some glutamatergic drugs (such as the glutamate-inhibiting riluzole) have implicated glutamate in OCD. OCD has been associated with reduced N-Acetylaspartic acid in the mPFC, which is thought to reflect neuron density or functionality, although the exact interpretation has not been established.

Diagnosis

Formal diagnosis may be performed by a psychologist, psychiatrist, clinical social worker, or other licensed mental health professional. OCD, like other mental and behavioral health disorders, cannot be diagnosed by a medical exam. Nor are there any medical exams that can predict if one will fall victim to such illnesses. To be diagnosed with OCD, a person must have obsessions, compulsions, or both, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The DSM notes that there are multiple characteristics that can turn obsessions and compulsions from normalized behavior to "clinically significant". There has to be recurring and strong thoughts or impulsive that intrude on the day-to-day lives of the patients and cause noticeable levels of anxiousness.

These thoughts, impulses, or images are of a degree or type that lies outside the normal range of worries about conventional problems. A person may attempt to ignore, suppress such obsessions, neutralize them with another thought or action, or try to rationalize their anxiety away. People with OCD tend to recognize their obsessions as irrational.

Compulsions become clinically significant when a person feels driven to perform them in response to an obsession, or according to rules that must be applied rigidly, and when the person consequently feels or causes significant distress. Therefore, while many people who do not have OCD may perform actions often associated with OCD (such as ordering items in a pantry by height), the distinction with clinically significant OCD lies in the fact that the person with OCD must perform these actions to avoid significant psychological distress. These behaviors or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing distress or preventing some dreaded event or situation; however, these activities are not logically or practically connected to the issue, or, they are excessive. In addition, at some point during the course of the disorder, the individual must realize that his or her obsessions or compulsions are unreasonable or excessive.

Moreover, the obsessions or compulsions must be time-consuming, often taking up more than one hour per day, or cause impairment in social, occupational, or scholastic functioning. It is helpful to quantify the severity of symptoms and impairment before and during treatment for OCD. In addition to the person's estimate of the time spent each day harboring obsessive-compulsive thoughts or behaviors, concrete tools can be used to gauge the person's condition. This may be done with rating scales, such as the Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS; expert rating) or the obsessive-compulsive inventory (OCI-R; self-rating). With measurements such as these, psychiatric consultation can be more appropriately determined, as it has been standardized.

In regards to diagnosing, the health professional also looks to make sure that the signs of obsessions and compulsions are not the results of any drugs, prescription or recreational, that the patient may be taking.

There are several types of obsessive thoughts that are found commonly in those with OCD. Some of these include fear of germs, hurting loved ones, embarrassment, neatness, societally unacceptable sexual thoughts etc. Within OCD, these specific categories are often diagnosed into their own type of OCD.

OCD is sometimes placed in a group of disorders called the obsessive–compulsive spectrum.

Another criterion in the DSM is that a person's mental illness does not fit one of the other categories of a mental disorder better. That is to say, if the obsessions and compulsions of a patient could be better described by trichotillomania, it would not be diagnosed as OCD. That being said, OCD does often go hand in hand with other mental disorders. For this reason, one may be diagnosed with multiple mental disorders at once.

A different aspect of the diagnoses is the degree of insight had by the individual in regards to the truth of the obsessions. There are three levels, good/fair, poor and absent/delusional. Good/fair indicated that the patient is aware that the obsessions they have are not true or probably not true. Poor indicates that the patient believes their obsessional beliefs are probably true. Absent/delusional indicates that they fully believe their obsessional thoughts to be true. Approximately 4% or fewer individuals with OCD will be diagnosed as absent/delusional. Additionally, as many as 30% of those with OCD also have a lifetime tic disorder, meaning they have been diagnosed with a tic disorder at some point in their life.

There are several different types of tics that have been observed in individuals with OCD. These include but are not limited to, "grunting", "jerking" or "shrugging" body parts, sniffling, and excessive blinking.

There has been a significant amount of progress over the last few decades, and as of 2022 there is statically significant improvement in the diagnostic process for individuals with OCD. One study found that of two groups of individuals, one with participants under the age of 27.25 and one with participants over that age, those in the younger group experienced a significantly faster time between the onset of OCD tendencies and their formal diagnoses.

Differential diagnosis
OCD is often confused with the separate condition obsessive–compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). OCD is egodystonic, meaning that the disorder is incompatible with the individual's self-concept. As egodystonic disorders go against a person's self-concept, they tend to cause much distress. OCPD, on the other hand, is egosyntonic, marked by the person's acceptance that the characteristics and behaviors displayed as a result are compatible with their self-image, or are otherwise appropriate, correct, or reasonable.

As a result, people with OCD are often aware that their behavior is not rational, and are unhappy about their obsessions, but nevertheless feel compelled by them. By contrast, people with OCPD are not aware of anything abnormal; they will readily explain why their actions are rational. It is usually impossible to convince them otherwise, and they tend to derive pleasure from their obsessions or compulsions.

Management
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and psychotropic medications are the first-line treatments for OCD.

Therapy

The specific CBT technique used is called exposure and response prevention (ERP), which involves teaching the person to deliberately come into contact with situations that trigger obsessive thoughts and fears (exposure), without carrying out the usual compulsive acts associated with the obsession (response prevention). This technique causes patients to gradually learn to tolerate the discomfort and anxiety associated with not performing their compulsions. For many patients, ERP is the add-on treatment of choice when selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) medication does not effectively treat OCD symptoms, or vice versa, for individuals who begin treatment with psychotherapy. Modalities differ in ERP treatment but both virtual reality based as well as unguided computer assisted treatment programs have shown effective results in treatment programs.

For example, a patient might be asked to touch something very mildly contaminated (exposure), and wash their hands only once afterward (response prevention). Another example might entail asking the patient to leave the house and check the lock only once (exposure), without going back to check again (response prevention). After succeeding at one stage of treatment, the patient's level of discomfort in the exposure phase can be increased. When this therapy is successful, the patient will quickly habituate to an anxiety-producing situation, discovering a considerable drop in anxiety level.

ERP has a strong evidence base, and is considered the most effective treatment for OCD. However, this claim was doubted by some researchers in 2000, who criticized the quality of many studies.

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), a newer therapy also used to treat anxiety and depression, has also been found to be effective in treatment of OCD. ACT uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies to teach patients not to overreact to or avoid unpleasant thoughts and feelings but rather "move toward valued behavior."

A 2007 Cochrane review found that psychological interventions derived from CBT models, such as ERP and ACT, were more effective than non-CBT interventions. Other forms of psychotherapy, such as psychodynamics and psychoanalysis, may help in managing some aspects of the disorder. However, in 2007, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) noted a lack of controlled studies showing their efficacy, "in dealing with the core symptoms of OCD." For body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRB), behavioral interventions such as habit-reversal training and decoupling are recommended.

Psychotherapy in combination with psychiatric medication may be more effective than either option alone for individuals with severe OCD. ERP coupled with weight restoration and serotonin reuptake inhibitors has proven the most effective when treating OCD and an eating disorder simultaneously.

Medication

The medications most frequently used to treat OCD are antidepressants, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). Sertraline and fluoxetine are effective in treating OCD for children and adolescents.

SSRIs help people with OCD by inhibiting the reabsorption of serotonin by the nerve cells after they carry messages from neurons to synapse; thus, more serotonin is available to pass further messages between nearby nerve cells.

SSRIs are a second-line treatment of adult OCD with mild functional impairment, and as first-line treatment for those with moderate or severe impairment. In children, SSRIs can be considered as a second-line therapy in those with moderate to severe impairment, with close monitoring for psychiatric adverse effects. Patients treated with SSRIs are about twice as likely to respond to treatment as are those treated with placebo, so this treatment is qualified as efficacious. Efficacy has been demonstrated both in short-term (6–24 weeks) treatment trials, and in discontinuation trials with durations of 28–52 weeks.

Clomipramine, a medication belonging to the class of tricyclic antidepressants, appears to work as well as SSRIs, but has a higher rate of side effects.

In 2006, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines recommended augmentative second-generation (atypical) antipsychotics for treatment-resistant OCD. Atypical antipsychotics are not useful when used alone, and no evidence supports the use of first-generation antipsychotics. For OCD treatment specifically, there is tentative evidence for risperidone, and insufficient evidence for olanzapine. Quetiapine is no better than placebo with regard to primary outcomes, but small effects were found in terms of Y-BOCS score. The efficacy of quetiapine and olanzapine are limited by an insufficient number of studies. A 2014 review article found two studies that indicated that aripiprazole was "effective in the short-term", and found that "[t]here was a small effect-size for risperidone or anti-psychotics in general in the short-term"; however, the study authors found "no evidence for the effectiveness of quetiapine or olanzapine in comparison to placebo." While quetiapine may be useful when used in addition to an SSRI/SNRI in treatment-resistant OCD, these drugs are often poorly tolerated, and have metabolic side effects that limit their use. A guideline by the American Psychological Association suggested that dextroamphetamine may be considered by itself after more well-supported treatments have been attempted.

Procedures
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been found to have effectiveness in some severe and refractory cases. Transcranial magnetic stimulation has shown to provide therapeutic benefits in alleviating symptoms.

Surgery may be used as a last resort in people who do not improve with other treatments. In this procedure, a surgical lesion is made in an area of the brain (the cingulate cortex). In one study, 30% of participants benefitted significantly from this procedure. Deep brain stimulation and vagus nerve stimulation are possible surgical options that do not require destruction of brain tissue. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration approved deep-brain stimulation for the treatment of OCD under a humanitarian device exemption, requiring that the procedure be performed only in a hospital with special qualifications to do so.

In the United States, psychosurgery for OCD is a treatment of last resort, and will not be performed until the person has failed several attempts at medication (at the full dosage) with augmentation, and many months of intensive cognitive–behavioral therapy with exposure and ritual/response prevention. Likewise, in the United Kingdom, psychosurgery cannot be performed unless a course of treatment from a suitably qualified cognitive–behavioral therapist has been carried out.

Children
Therapeutic treatment may be effective in reducing ritual behaviors of OCD for children and adolescents. Similar to the treatment of adults with OCD, cognitive behavioral therapy stands as an effective and validated first line of treatment of OCD in children. Family involvement, in the form of behavioral observations and reports, is a key component to the success of such treatments. Parental interventions also provide positive reinforcement for a child who exhibits appropriate behaviors as alternatives to compulsive responses. In a recent meta-analysis of evidenced-based treatment of OCD in children, family-focused individual CBT was labeled as "probably efficacious," establishing it as one of the leading psychosocial treatments for youth with OCD. After one or two years of therapy, in which a child learns the nature of their obsession and acquires strategies for coping, they may acquire a larger circle of friends, exhibit less shyness, and become less self-critical.

Although the known causes of OCD in younger age groups range from brain abnormalities to psychological preoccupations, life stress such as bullying and traumatic familial deaths may also contribute to childhood cases of OCD, and acknowledging these stressors can play a role in treating the disorder.

Epidemiology

Obsessive–compulsive disorder affects about 2.3% of people at some point in their life, with the yearly rate about 1.2%. OCD occurs worldwide. It is unusual for symptoms to begin after the age of 35 and half of people develop problems before 20. Males and females are affected about equally. However there is an earlier age for onset for males than females.

Prognosis
Quality of life is reduced across all domains in OCD. While psychological or pharmacological treatment can lead to a reduction of OCD symptoms and an increase in reported quality of life, symptoms may persist at moderate levels even following adequate treatment courses, and completely symptom-free periods are uncommon. In pediatric OCD, around 40% still have the disorder in adulthood, and around 40% qualify for remission.

History
Plutarch, an ancient Greek philosopher and historian, describes an ancient Roman man who possibly had scrupulosity, which could be a symptom of OCD or OCPD. This man is described as "turning pale under his crown of flowers," praying with a "faltering voice," and scattering "incense with trembling hands."

In the 7th century AD, John Climacus records an instance of a young monk plagued by constant and overwhelming "temptations to blasphemy" consulting an older monk, who told him: "My son, I take upon myself all the sins which these temptations have led you, or may lead you, to commit. All I require of you is that for the future you pay no attention to them whatsoever." The Cloud of Unknowing, a Christian mystical text from the late 14th century, recommends dealing with recurring obsessions by attempting to ignore them, and, if that fails, to "cower under them like a poor wretch and a coward overcome in battle, and reckon it to be a waste of your time for you to strive any longer against them", a technique now known as emotional flooding.

From the 14th to the 16th century in Europe, it was believed that people who experienced blasphemous, sexual or other obsessive thoughts were possessed by the devil. Based on this reasoning, treatment involved banishing the "evil" from the "possessed" person through exorcism. The vast majority of people who thought that they were possessed by the devil did not have hallucinations or other "spectacular symptoms" but "complained of anxiety, religious fears, and evil thoughts." In 1584, a woman from Kent, England, named Mrs. Davie, described by a justice of the peace as "a good wife", was nearly burned at the stake after she confessed that she experienced constant, unwanted urges to murder her family.

The English term obsessive–compulsive arose as a translation of German Zwangsvorstellung (obsession) used in the first conceptions of OCD by Karl Westphal. Westphal's description went on to influence Pierre Janet, who further documented features of OCD. In the early 1910s, Sigmund Freud attributed obsessive–compulsive behavior to unconscious conflicts that manifest as symptoms. Freud describes the clinical history of a typical case of "touching phobia" as starting in early childhood, when the person has a strong desire to touch an item. In response, the person develops an "external prohibition" against this type of touching. However, this "prohibition does not succeed in abolishing" the desire to touch; all it can do is repress the desire and "force it into the unconscious." Freudian psychoanalysis remained the dominant treatment for OCD until the mid-1980s, even though medicinal and therapeutic treatments were known and available, because it was widely thought that these treatments would be detrimental to the effectiveness of the psychotherapy. In the mid-1980s, this approach changed, and practitioners began treating OCD primarily with medicine and practical therapy rather than through psychoanalysis.

Notable cases
John Bunyan (1628–1688), the author of The Pilgrim's Progress, displayed symptoms of OCD (which had not yet been named). During the most severe period of his condition, he would mutter the same phrase over and over again to himself while rocking back and forth. He later described his obsessions in his autobiography Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, stating, "These things may seem ridiculous to others, even as ridiculous as they were in themselves, but to me they were the most tormenting cogitations." He wrote two pamphlets advising those with similar anxieties. In one of them, he warns against indulging in compulsions: "Have care of putting off your trouble of spirit in the wrong way: by promising to reform yourself and lead a new life, by your performances or duties".

British poet, essayist and lexicographer Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) also had OCD. He had elaborate rituals for crossing the thresholds of doorways, and repeatedly walked up and down staircases counting the steps. He would touch every post on the street as he walked past, only step in the middles of paving stones, and repeatedly perform tasks as though they had not been done properly the first time.

The American aviator and filmmaker Howard Hughes is known to have had OCD, primarily an obsessive fear of germs and contamination. Friends of Hughes have also mentioned his obsession with minor flaws in clothing. This was conveyed in The Aviator (2004), a film biography of Hughes.

English singer-songwriter George Ezra has openly spoken about his life-long struggle with OCD, particularly primarily obsessional obsessive–compulsive disorder (Pure O).

World renowned Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is also known to have OCD, among other mental health conditions.

American actor James Spader has also spoken about his OCD. In 2014, when interviewed for Rolling Stone he said: "I'm obsessive-compulsive. I have very, very strong obsessive-compulsive issues. I'm very particular. ... It's very hard for me, you know? It makes you very addictive in behavior, because routine and ritual become entrenched. But in work, it manifests itself in obsessive attention to detail and fixation. It serves my work very well: Things don't slip by. But I'm not very easygoing.

In 2022 the president of Chile Gabriel Boric stated that he had OCD, saying: "I have an obsessive–compulsive disorder that's completely under control. Thank God I've been able to undergo treatment and it doesn't make me unable to carry out my responsibilities as the President of the Republic."

Society and culture

Art, entertainment and media
Movies and television shows may portray idealized or incomplete representations of disorders such as OCD. Compassionate and accurate literary and on-screen depictions may help counteract the potential stigma associated with an OCD diagnosis, and lead to increased public awareness, understanding and sympathy for such disorders.
 The play and film adaptations of The Odd Couple based around the character of Felix, who shows some of the common symptoms of OCD.
 In the film As Good as It Gets (1997), actor Jack Nicholson portrays a man with OCD who performs ritualistic behaviors that disrupt his life.
 The film Matchstick Men (2003) portrays a con man named Roy (Nicolas Cage) with OCD who opens and closes doors three times while counting aloud before he can walk through them.
 In the television series Monk (2002–2009), the titular character Adrian Monk fears both human contact and dirt.
 In the novel Turtles All the Way Down (2017) by John Green, teenage main character Aza Holmes struggles with OCD that manifests as a fear of the human microbiome. Throughout the story, Aza repeatedly opens an unhealed callus on her finger to drain out what she believes are pathogens. The novel is based on Green's own experiences with OCD. He explained that Turtles All the Way Down is intended to show how "most people with chronic mental illnesses also live long, fulfilling lives".
 The British TV series Pure (2019) stars Charly Clive as a 24-year-old Marnie who is plagued by disturbing sexual thoughts, as a kind of primarily obsessional obsessive compulsive disorder.

Research
The naturally occurring sugar inositol has been suggested as a treatment for OCD.

μ-Opioids, such as hydrocodone and tramadol, may improve OCD symptoms. Administration of opiate treatment may be contraindicated in individuals concurrently taking CYP2D6 inhibitors such as fluoxetine and paroxetine.

Much current research is devoted to the therapeutic potential of the agents that affect the release of the neurotransmitter glutamate or the binding to its receptors. These include riluzole, memantine, gabapentin, N-acetylcysteine, topiramate and lamotrigine.

Other animals

References

External links

 National Institute Of Mental Health
 American Psychiatric Association
 APA Division 12 treatment page for obsessive-compulsive disorder

Anxiety disorders
Magical thinking

Ritual
Wikipedia neurology articles ready to translate
Wikipedia medicine articles ready to translate

Obsessive–compulsive disorder


Giuseppe Oddi (6 June 1839 - 3 June 1919) was an Italian Roman Catholic professed religious - though not a priest - of the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor. He felt drawn to religious life after his adolescence and was resolved to become a Franciscan upon seeing the example that Mariano da Roccacasale set. Upon his profession of vows he assumed the religious name of "Diego from Vallinfreda".

Oddi was beatified - alongside Mariano da Roccacasale - on 3 October 1999.

Life
Giuseppe Oddi was born in Vallinfreda on 6 June 1839 to the poor but pious Vincenzo Oddi and Bernardina Pasquali. During his childhood he had a limited education despite the fact he was receptive to learning about his faith to which he became devoted to.

At the age of 20 - in 1859 - he felt as if he were being called to the religious life and announced his desire to his parents to become a professed religious. His parents met this with fierce opposition and denied Oddi this chance. In tears he confronted his father and said: "What am I doing? I want to go to become a saint". After sometime in 1863 while on a pilgrimage to Rome he met Mariano da Roccacasale and was inspired with Mariano's example; this inspired Oddi to become a professed member of the Order of Friars Minor of the Franciscans. Oddi went to the convent of the Franciscans in Bellegra in 1871 and was welcomed as a postulant; he later made his solemn vows in 1889.

Oddi was known among his fellow Franciscans for his bright temperament and for his obvious and enriching faith. His personal holiness spread in reputation throughout Rome and the surrounding areas to the extent that even Pope Pius X said of him: "This is a true son of Saint Francis".

Oddi died at sunset on 3 June 1919 not long before he was to turn 80. His remains were exhumed on 12 November 1931 and were transferred to a new resting place in the presence of 3000 people.

Beatification
The process for Oddi's beatification commenced in Subiaco with a diocesan process that opened in 1933 and spanned until 1937; this process was initiated in order to evaluate Oddi's life and to investigate the extent to which he exercised the virtues and led a life of personal holiness. This process occurred despite the fact that the Congregation of Rites - under Pope Paul VI - did not grant their formal approval to the initiation of the cause until 1 July 1964 - this conferred upon Oddi the posthumous title of Servant of God. Not long after another process opened in 1968 and continued the work of the first process until it closed on 26 May 1972.

The postulation then compiled the Positio as a result of previous investigations and drafted the dossier to attest to his cause and also in order to provide biographical details to Rome who would begin their own investigations; this was sent to Rome in 1987. On 22 January 1991 he was proclaimed to be Venerable after Pope John Paul II acknowledged the fact that he had lived a model Christian life of heroic virtue.

The miracle required for his beatification was investigated in Sabina-Poggio Mirteto in 1960 and was ratified as being a valid process that completed the work assigned to the set criteria on 27 September 1985. John Paul II approved it on 6 April 1998 as being a legitimate miracle and beatified Oddi on 3 October 1999.

References

External links
Hagiography Circle
Saints SQPN

1839 births
1919 deaths
19th-century venerated Christians
19th-century Italian people
20th-century venerated Christians
20th-century Italian people
Beatifications by Pope John Paul II
Capuchins
Italian beatified people
Italian Franciscans
Members of Christian religious orders from Rome
Venerated Catholics by Pope John Paul II

Giuseppe Oddi