Eli5:what’s the difference between an illness, a disease and a disorder? And which of these categories does ocd fit in?
In: Other
There is not a clear and agreed upon definition for any of these terms. They are all relative to what one is considering their opposite (i.e. healthy, uninfected, normal) all of which are also defined by their opposites, which is as circular as it sounds.
OCD is commonly called a mental illness and a neurological disorder, and both just mean “the person has a thing that interferes with their ability to live life the way they would like, and we think of that thing as being related to the mind/brain.”
In psychology there is a saying that you “treat the patient, not the symptom.” This refers to addressing the issues they identify as important and disruptive to them, rather than (as a silly example) fix their hearing if they hear voices but it doesn’t bother them.
What does OCD stand for?
On a scientific, technical level there is no difference between any of these terms. Some get used in specific circumstances because they were part of the name (i.e. OCD is sticking with “disorder” because it already is) and so people would look at you weird if you tried changing up the acronyms, but the words themselves are 100% interchangeable no matter how much people try to argue about it.
illness and disease are the same thing just different word, disorder is something like a mental illness
[deleted]
a similar post was made a few years ago – you might find it interesting:
ELI5: What's the difference between a condition, disorder, disease and syndrome?
byu/ballonrock inexplainlikeimfive
it’s archived so you won’t be able to comment – but some informative posts there.
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