Teach Secondary -Issue 15.1

ABBC analysis of NHS data conducted in October 2025 revealed a tripling in the number of 16- to 24-year-olds reporting symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) over the past decade. A number of different factors may have contributed to this rise, increased awareness being one of them. Musician George Ezra opened up about his struggles with the condition in 2020. More recently, Wednesday star Jenna Ortega has spoken about her experiences. It may also be that professionals are getting better at distinguishing OCD from other anxiety disorders after 2017 saw the condition receive its own section in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) – a tome published by the American Psychiatric Association and used by most healthcare specialists as standard. Misplaced framing Whilst OCD shares much in common with anxiety, it is, in fact, a different beast. People tend to focus on the ‘compulsive’ aspect of the illness, because from an outside perspective, that’s how it manifests. What people see is an individual repeatedly washing their hands, switching lights on and off, repeatedly checking doors and appliances – the types of behaviours people have come to associate with the term ‘OCD’. Over time, however, even this surface level understanding of OCD has become watered down, at least colloquially. You’ll often hear people say ‘I’m a bit OCD’ because they like their desk to be tidy, or because they favour wearing the same coloured socks on a Tuesday. Yet to frame OCD in this way is to miss the more crucial and debilitating aspect of the disorder, at least from the point of view of the person experiencing it – the obsessive thoughts. A‘brain under siege’ Experts have described OCD as like having a ‘brain under siege’ . People with the condition are subjected to relentless and extremely troubling thoughts – often the worst thing they can possibly imagine about themselves. Author and campaigner Bryony Gordon has written about how her OCDworked to convince her that she was a serial killer, that she was going to harmher daughter and even that she was a paedophile. Most people will have the occasional intrusive thought. We’ve actually evolved to fleetingly visualise awful things happening to us as a survival mechanism to help us guard against worst case scenarios. The difference with OCD is that those intrusive thoughts can’t be pushed away. People with OCD lack the ability to switch to thinking about something else when confronted by their own brain’s relentless insistence that they’ve done something terrible – even if, logically, they know that’s not the case. Needless to say, this quickly becomes extremely distressing. The compulsive behaviours most of us have come to associate with OCD arise as a coping mechanism for, and distraction from, these constant, tormenting thoughts. Profound relief Following the news of OCD’s increasing prevalence, I dedicated part of my LBC show to discussing the misconceptions that still exist around the condition. Like pretty much all forms of mental illness, there are people who still labour under the misapprehension that OCD is ‘attention-seeking behaviour’ that can be ‘cured’ by simply ignoring it. Callers to the programme told me about their frustrations at having their experiences of OCD trivialized, and interactions with some people who even thought it was funny. The biggest takeaway for me, however, was how the contributors with OCD described the imperviousness of their illness to therapeutic interventions used to treat other mental health conditions. Traditional cognitive behavioural therapy methods, for example, are widely prescribed on the NHS for anxiety and depression, but don’t tend to be as effective in combatting OCD. Callers told me of their profound relief when they eventually got to see an OCD specialist who genuinely understood the illness and could prescribe appropriate interventions. Several had found exposure and response prevention therapy to be helpful. As more young people confront the reality of this cruel and debilitating condition, distinguishing it from anxiety and signposting to specialist services could make all the difference to their outcomes. With the proportion of young people affected by obsessive compulsive order growing rapidly, we should be doing more to familiarise ourselves with what the condition actually is, and the forms of support that can genuinely help Natasha Devon Natasha Devon is a writer, broadcaster and campaigner on issues relating to education and mental health; to find out more, visit natashadevon.com or follow @_NatashaDevon 21 teachwire.net/secondary S C H O O L O F T H O U G H T