The Effects of SSRI’s on the Symptoms of OCD

SSRI‘s are an effective pharmacological treatment strategy for treating symptoms of OCD. The benefit of treating OCD using SSRI‘s was discovered as an unintended beneficial side effect from the treatment of depression using SSRI‘s. While not everyone who experiences OCD symptoms benefit from SSRI‘s, novel treatment approaches examining the augmentation of SSRI‘s have been shown to provide additional benefits to those who remain resistant to the treatment of OCD using SSRI‘s alone. Work remains to be done to understand the underlying neurological processes involved in OCD and to determine if there are more than one neurological pathway for the development of OCD symptoms. This work is necessary to develop more targeted, individualized and efficacious approaches to the treatment of OCD.