[Obsessive compulsive disorders: part of anxiety disorders or another family of mental disorders?]

This article reviews four separate conceptions of obsessional compulsive disorder (OCD). The first is a movement disorder, the second is part of a wider OCD spectrum including impulsive and compulsive disorders, the third is currently classified in the DSM-IV-TR, as an anxiety disorder, and the fourth and final view that OCD is a belief disorder and forms a continuum with other belief disorders such as delusional ideation. Although there is support for the four viewpoints, and OCD is distinct from movement, anxiety and impulsive disorders, it seems reasonable to conceptualize OCD as a belief disorder which creates anxiety as a consequence of the obsessional belief.