Maybe I shouldn’t announce this as a counselor but I’m going to do it anyway – OCD might be my favorite presenting problem to work with. This is because I understand OCD and how to treat it. I know that my OCD clients will get better.
OCD has a way of diving into a person’s life and taking control in very powerful ways. It convinces its victim they are terrible people, sick, or hurt. It tells people they want to hurt their loved ones or might by accident. It tells gay people they are straight and straight people they might be gay. It plays tricks with our memories even when we are sure of them.
OCD uses guilt, shame, fear, and embarrassment to create an intimidating facade. It’s resistant to logic and reason and clever in the way it uses our natural problem solving processes against us.
The truth is that OCD is weak.
When you learn how to shine a light on the tricks OCD uses to maintain control, you unveil the man behind the curtain. I get excited about my OCD clients because I know something that they don’t and I get to watch them discover it. It’s like sharing your favorite movie series with someone who has never watched it. You take joy in watching them experience a brand new world.
OCD is Treatable
I utilize a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy called Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy to treat OCD. ERP is well-researched and has been used to treat OCD successfully for nearly half a century. ERP continues to be refined and is flexible enough to be adapted to the unique complexities of individuals.
What OCD Is
OCD is the process of experiencing an intrusive thought you don’t like or want, having anxiety associated with that thought, and then engaging a behavior designed to decrease the anxiety or make the thought go away.
Essentially the O (obsession/intrusive thought or image) leads to a C (compulsion or behavior). This might manifest in stereotypical ways such as hand-washing or checking the oven multiple times, but more often in my experience is reflected in more subtle ways.
Types of OCD
There are many ways OCD uses intrusive thoughts to attack you. It’s almost always unique to what is important to you and what will allow it to stick in your mind. Some common themes include:
- Harm OCD – thoughts of hurting someone either on purpose or accidentally
- Sexual intrusive thoughts – thoughts of rape, pedophilia, incestuous relations, sex with someone opposite who you are attracted to.
- Spiritual obsessions (scrupulosity OCD) – thoughts of having committed sin, being unclean, being destined for hell.
- Contamination OCD – feeling as though you have contracted germs or a disease/virus/illness of some kind.
- What If’s OCD – this is admittedly my own term but encompasses as wide range of intrusive thoughts about worst case scenarios happening. What if get in car crash – What if I pass out – What if something happens to my child?
The hallmark of OCD is that all of these intrusive thoughts follow zero logic whatsoever. They cause distress because they are the last thing the OCD sufferrer would ever want to do. While everyone experiences scary images or thoughts, the non-ocd sufferer can brush these thoughts away as “silly” or “strange”. The OCD sufferer, however, becomes obessessed with figuring them out, making them go away, or counter acting them.
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Learn more about OCD here : Anxiety Resources