Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Intrusive Thoughts

Everyone gets intrusive thoughts, not just OCD sufferers.

• "What if I accidentally run my shopping trolley into this person?"
• "What if I forget to turn off the light?"
• "What if I tread in dog poo and take it into the house?"

We get them all the time, and for some reason they tend to be about things that we were brought up to think of as naughty, unpleasant or downright bad.

... we begin to wonder whether it was just a thought - maybe we actually did it!

Anxiety

For many of us, intrusive thoughts can lead to an intense feeling of anxiety. These feelings can be so intense that we begin to doubt ourselves; maybe it wasn't just a thought, and maybe we actually did it!

This in turn leads to even greater levels of anxiety, and the whole thing seems to spiral out of control.

Compulsive Behaviour

• We use a magic number as protection against thoughts that come from who knows where.
• Maybe if we check that the door is locked three times, the intrusive thoughts won't come.

We think that the compulsive behaviour soothes us, but it doesn’t. Despite the fact that the compulsive behaviour feels like the right thing to do, the truth is that it allows us to maintain the obsession.

And the fact is that we cannot do either behaviour in isolation for an extended period. If we can stop doing one behaviour, the other will cease also.

Managing Behaviour

There is the part of you that needs to obsess, and there is the part that does the compulsive behaviour. The problem is that we are so habituated to go straight from the obsessive thought to the compulsive behaviour that we never get time to reflect.

We put so much effort into the OCD process that there’s no mental energy left to consider “Why?” Why is it so important to us to put so much effort into going nowhere? Why do we have to waste time doing OCD? Wouldn’t it be better to use that mental energy to get what we want out of life? Yes, it would.

And that’s the first step towards getting our life back on track: reflecting on why it is so important to us to do the OCD. Maybe in time we will discover that the whole obsession thing is there to stop us thinking about something very, very naughty indeed!

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

CBT is the treatment of choice for OCD. There's no drugs and therefore no side-effects or dependency issues.

You work at your own pace, and the exercises can be done whenever and wherever you choose. Your progress is measured using the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), and the improvement is as far-reaching and permanent as you want it to be - you are in control!

Get the Life You Want! now has a therapist trained in the use of CBT, and you can contact him on the usual number: