Health Success Strategies - Putting Cognitive Behavior Therapy into Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
If your first thought about the title was, “That sounds boring,” you might be right. If you knew that over 2 million Americans were affected and afflicted by Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and chances are you know at least one of these people, then you might be more intrigued.
But what the heck is CBT?? Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy…and it’s one of the more effective and efficient methods to treat OCD.
Let’s start with a little background information.
People with OCD have persistent, upsetting thoughts - obsessions - and use rituals - compulsions - to try to control the anxiety these thoughts produce. Many time the rituals end up controlling the person.
If people are obsessed with germs or dirt, they may develop a compulsion to wash their hands over and over again. If they develop an obsession with intruders, they may lock and relock their doors many times before going to bed. Being afraid of social embarrassment may prompt people with OCD to comb their hair compulsively in front of a mirror and sometimes they get “caught” in the mirror and can’t move away from it. Performing such rituals is not pleasurable. At best, it produces only temporary relief from the anxiety created by obsessive thoughts.
Other common rituals include the need to repeatedly check things, touch things (especially in a particular sequence), or count things.
Some common obsessions include frequent thoughts of violence and harming loved ones, persistently thinking about performing sexual acts the person dislikes, or having thoughts which are prohibited by religious beliefs. People with OCD may also be preoccupied with order and symmetry, have difficulty throwing things out, or hoard unneeded items.
Just so you know, healthy people also have rituals, such as checking to see if the stove is off several times before leaving the house. The difference is that people with OCD perform their rituals even though doing so interferes with daily life and they find the repetition distressing. Although most adults with OCD recognize that what they’re doing is senseless, some adults and most children may not realize that their behavior is out of the ordinary.
OCD can be accompanied by eating disorders, other anxiety disorders, or depression. It strikes men and women in roughly equal numbers and usually first appears in childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood. One-third of adults with OCD developed symptoms as children, and research indicates that this disorder might run in families.
The course of the disease is quite varied. Symptoms may come and go, ease over time, or get worse. If it becomes severe, it can keep a person from working or carrying out normal responsibilities at home. People with OCD may try to help themselves by avoiding situations that trigger their obsessions, or they may use alcohol or drugs to calm themselves.
OCD usually responds well to treatment with specific specialized psychotherapy and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has proven to be especially effective. CBT is a form of psychotherapy which had its basis on the important role of thinking in how we feel and what we do.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is based on the idea that our thoughts cause our feelings and behaviors, not external things, like people, situations, and events.
The benefit of this fact is that we can change the way we think to feel / act better even if the situation does not change. Think of it as operating your life from the inside-out, rather than being controlled from the outside-in. Effective use of CBT will help improve your self-esteem (regardless of the ailment or diagnosis) and feel more empowered.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy is considered among the most rapid in terms of results obtained. The average number of sessions clients receive (across all types of problems and approaches to CBT) is only 16, where as other forms of therapy, like traditional psychoanalysis, can take many years.
CBT therapists believe that the clients change because they learn how to think differently and they act on that learning. Therefore, CBT therapists focus on teaching rational self-counseling skills. This is especially useful in the treatment of OCD.
A person struggling with OCD can expect a therapist to ask a number of exploratory questions and create a “hierarchy” of fears and anxieties early in the therapeutic process. This would be a list of the least to most anxiety producing situations or thoughts. The therapist and the client would then generally begin with the least anxiety producing situation and work towards the most.
Through a series of cognitive interventions, relaxation training and gradual action steps which expose the client little-by-little to more and more of the anxiety, the client will begin to have positive results in a relatively short period of time.
So, putting a little CBT into OCD isn’t so boring after all, and now you’ll not only better understand those whom you know have struggled with OCD, but you may also be able to point them in the direction of effective therapeutic results.
Ken Donaldson has been offering counseling, coaching, and educational programs since 1987. His programs are focused on empowering people to have more successful lives, businesses and relationships. Claim your FREE Relationship Success Special Report at Marry YourSelf First!. Ken is the author of Marry YourSelf First! Saying “I DO” to a Life of Passion, Power and Purpose.
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