Get Your Life Back from OCD.
OCD can be identified by the presence of obsessions and/or compulsions that cause a person significant distress and take up more than an hour of their time per day. Obsessions are unwanted thoughts, images, or urges that persist and are intrusive to the person experiencing them. Compulsions are defined by mental acts or repetitive behaviors that a person feels a strong need to perform in response to their obsessions. The person is compelled to continue the compulsory behaviors because of the temporary relief they provide. Performing the compulsions fuels the OCD and keeps the person stuck in the cycle, essentially becoming a prisoner to their symptoms.
Common Obsessions and Compulsions
Thoughts
Recurrent, intrusive thoughts that persist and cause significant anxiety and distress.
Images
Unwanted, persistent images, often graphic in nature, that cause an individual distress.
Sensations
Hyperawareness of sensory experiences such as breathing, blinking, and walking.
Urges
A strong desire to engage in compulsions to reduce distress and anxiety.
Checking
Time-consuming, repetitive checking of things such as doors being locked, the stove is turned off.
Washing
Excessive hand washing or showering in an attempt to reduce anxiety in response to contamination obsessions.
Ordering
Repeated behaviors related to things being symmetrical, even, or “just right” in order to reduce distress.
Mental Rituals
Mental acts such as repeatedly counting or praying in order to neutralize the obsession.
Hope and Help for OCD
CBT
CBT helps clients to identify and work to change unhelpful thinking patterns that tend to keep them “stuck” and explore the way thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are connected and how they have the power to change unhealthy patterns into healthy ones. With OCD, the client learns to recognize when their brain is sending “error messages” such as in the case of obsessions and compulsions. Coping skills and confidence are developed to assist in achieving treatment goals. CBT is empirically-based and has high levels of success in treating OCD.
ERP
Exposure and Response Prevention is a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that provides opportunities for clients to face the things and situations they fear and gradually become desensitized, leading to less anxiety and more freedom. ERP and any therapeutic exposure exercises are always done at the comfort level of the client, as the client is the expert in themself and knows what pace works best for them. Exposure exercises can be practiced in therapy as well as in between sessions. Exposure therapies, including ERP, are highly effective and can provide clients with effects that are lasting.
ACT
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy guides clients to discover what is truly important to them in their life and then take action towards living life in ways that they find deeply meaningful. The acceptance component of ACT emphasizes a non-judgmental approach to the way people experience their thoughts and feelings and encourages purposeful living, even in the face of challenges. In essence, even if you are struggling, ACT provides hope, clarity, and a compassionate path towards healing.
“I look at what’s on the T-shirts and see a solution that worries me. I see, ‘Just Do It’. ‘No Fear’… ‘No Fear’ is not something that you should put on a shirt. How about ‘I can hold my fear and still connect with you’… put that on your shirt.”
— Steven C. Hayes