OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER (OCD) OCD is a condition in which people experience repetitive and upsetting thoughts and/or behaviours and has two main features: obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions can be in the form of involuntary thoughts, images or impulses and commonly include fears about germs and contamination, over-concern with order or symmetry and/or inability to discard useless or worn out possessions and/or fears that things are not safe. The main features of obsessions are that they are automatic, frequent, upsetting or distressing, and difficult to control or get rid of. It is common for people with OCD to carry out a compulsion in order to reduce the anxiety they feel from an obsession. Raj Persaud talks to Dr Raymond Fowler, Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama, who in 1976 made a psychological study of the American businessman and Hollywood mogul Howard Hughes. Dr Fowler investigated all aspects of Hughes' life including his troubled childhood and his later life as a paranoid and eccentric recluse, and published his psychological autopsy in 1986 which described his various illnesses, including OCD.