Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Dummies by Rob Willson & Rob Willson

Author:Rob Willson & Rob Willson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781119601333
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2019-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

Identifying and Understanding Obsessional Problems

Obsessional problems are among the most disabling of common emotional-behavioural problems. People with obsessional problems can spend many hours a day plagued by upsetting thoughts and feel driven to repeatedly carry out rituals or fervidly avoid certain situations.

Some degree of obsessionality is entirely normal – for example, around half of all people have a particular thing that they check more than they think is necessary, such as whether the gas cooker has been switched off or the door’s been bolted. Obsessional problems have their roots in normal experiences, but the rituals and avoidance behaviours serve to make the frequency, severity and duration of obsessions worse. The more you try to rid yourself of doubts, the more they tend to play on your mind.

We define the terms related to obsessions in this list:

An obsession is a persistent, unwanted thought, image, doubt or urge that intrudes into your mind and triggers distress. Obsessions are said to have reached a psychiatric problem level when they cause significant levels of distress, interfere with your life and are present for more than an hour a day.

Preoccupation means being absorbed with something troubling that won’t leave your mind. You feel compelled to give it your attention. Preoccupations are fueled by self doubt that reaches proportions outside of typical everyday human experience. They’re similar to obsessions in that they’re regarded as problematic when they cause significant distress, interfere with your life and last for more than an hour per day.

In this chapter, we focus on preoccupations common to OCD, like the prevalence of germs or poisons or the content of an unwanted or intrusive thought such as ‘Do I want to harm my loved one?’ or ‘Did I turn off the cooker?’ OCD and other related disorders such as BDD and IAD have preoccupation as a major defining component. See Chapters 11 and 9, respectively, for more info about these disorders.

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