Y-BOCS

Recent research has shown that obsessions and compulsions occur quite commonly among normal people. While completing the inventories below, please keep in mind the following definitions of obsessions and compulsions.

OBSESSIONS are unwelcomed and distressing ideas, thoughts, or impulses that repeatedly enter your mind. They may seem to occur against your will. They may be repugnant to you, you may recognize them as senseless, and they may not fit your personality.

Examples of an obsession are recurrent thoughts or impulses to do harm to a child even though you never would or the idea that household cleansers may lead to contamination and serious illness.

Obsessions differ from worries in that worries are about possible negative things related to life problems that you are afraid might happen. For example, you may worry about failing an exam, about finances, health, or personal relationships. In contrast to obsessions, your worries don’t usually seem totally senseless, repugnant, or inconsistent with your personality.

COMPULSIONS, on the other hand, are behaviors or acts that you feel driven to perform although you may recognize them as senseless or excessive. Usually compulsions are performed in response to an obsession, or according to certain rules or in a stereotyped fashion. At times, you may try to resist doing them but this may prove difficult. You may experience discomfort that does not diminish until the behavior is completed.

Examples of a compulsion are the need to repeatedly check appliances, water faucets, and the lock on the front door before you can leave the house or repeated handwashing. While most compulsions are observable behaviors, some are unobservable mental acts, such as silent checking or having to recite nonsense phrases to yourself each time you have a bad thought.

Compulsions, as we define them here, are not to be confused with other kinds of compulsive behavior such as overeating, gambling, drinking alcohol, overshopping, or other “addictive behaviors.”

Given the above definitions, please read carefully each item on the checklist below and/or 1) select each obsession and compulsion that you currently experience and that you have experienced at some time in the past. If you selected obsessions or compulsions that you currently experience; 2) select the most upsetting obsessions that you currently experience; and 3) select the most upsetting compulsions that you are currently engaged in.

I have superstitious behaviors
Examples:
Not taking a bus or train if its number contains an “unlucky” number (like thirteen), staying in your house on the thirteenth of the month, throwing away clothes you wore while passing a funeral home or cemetery

Yale Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) Part 2

Thank you for completing the Y-BOCS checklist. Please select the most upsetting obsessions and compulsions that you currently experience. Remember the definitions of obsessions and compulsions and the examples of each that you may have noted on the checklist, and select the appropriate number from 0-4 under each question below.

OBSESSIVE THOUGHTS: Review the obsessions you checked on the Y-BOCS Symptom Checklist to help you answer the first five questions. Please think about the times when these symptoms were at their worst in the last 3-6 months (including today), and select one answer for each question.

COMPULSIONS: Review the compulsions you checked on theY-BOCS Symptom Checklist to help you answer these five questions. Please think about the times when these symptoms were at their worst in the last 3-6 months (including today), and check one answer for each question.