Approach To OCD In “Todo Psicología” In Tenerife: What Is Its Psychotherapeutic Approach?
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by the presence of obsessions and/or compulsions Obsessions are recurring, intrusive thoughts, images, or impulses that cause anxiety or discomfort. Compulsions are repetitive behaviors performed in response to obsessions in order to reduce anxiety or prevent a negative event.
OCD can significantly interfere with a person’s daily life and affect their ability to work, study, or relate to others. The etiology of OCD is not completely known, but it is believed to result from a combination of biological, psychological, and environmental factors.
The most common treatments for OCD are psychotherapy and medications, and although they can be implemented separately, the first choice treatment should be psychotherapy, since pharmacological treatment, which may sometimes be necessary, is aimed at treat the patient’s emotional state, derived from a history of suffering from OCD.
It is important to highlight that OCD treatment is an individualized process and may require time and patience to find the right approach and as with other mental health problems, the prognosis is better the sooner you act on it.
It is not lost on a person with some insight and some basic knowledge about the brain that, as with other mental health problems, the neurological, physiological, organic, physical or even genetic bases of OCD are mere speculations and hypotheses, which They imply a complexity of such caliber that if we follow a basic scientific principle such as parsimony, we would have to verify only when we finished ruling out the weight of culture or education in the etiology of the disorder.
Regarding the psychological hypotheses of how the disorder originates or what causes it, the most common is to assume that intrusive thoughts cause anxiety, this causes them to become obsessive and therefore the compulsions are attempts to calm the anxiety. If one stops looking at symptoms as phenomena with their own entity, and insists on observing when they arise, under what circumstances, what they are made of, one immediately realizes a few things
The person who suffers from what has been called OCD, elaborates in a very basic way any type of conflict they may be having. He is not able to get himself out of rigid categories, with very few nuances and complexities.
It doesn’t talk about emotions, feelings, everything is intellectualized. It’s as if thoughts are the thermometer of your emotions (and they certainly are). Due to the above, it is very difficult for them to connect their cognitive experience with what happens to them. For them there is no connection between their way of thinking and the events of the day, because there is no connection between their emotions and their cognitions either
Although it is arduous and complicated work, as progress is made in the connection between all facets of the experience, they become more skilled at establishing relationships and understanding what is happening to them.
“All Psychology” in Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Although in essence, after therapy, the same thing still happens to people who suffer from OCD, the connecting all facets of the experience, allows them to seek solutions in their lives, not at the level of ideas and/or ritual, so it is not experienced as abnormal, alien or invasive, whatever the way of thinking
Once again, as happens with hallucinations, delusions, and any other symptom in a person’s psychological experience, understanding, being able to understand what its meaning is, what it says about oneself, what functionality it has or where it comes from. comes from, it is essential to be able to normalize and learn to live with it, or make it acceptable and/or admissible.
Fear, for example, cannot be cured, but a person who suffers from panic attacks, for example, after therapy does not lose fear, it is that understanding what factor in their life motivates them allows them to implement solid solutions, and therefore experiencing fear becomes normalized and is not threatening, it becomes an unpleasant experience but one that is part of life and normal. The same thing happens with OCD, which has also been considered an anxiety disorder like panic attacks or panic attacks
Furthermore, not only the patient does different things around the symptom, when they understand more about it, but also the professionals. In fact, I believe that in psychiatry or psychology, something is done that is not usually done in other areas of applied knowledge: eliminating symptoms (signs) without having an explanation of the reason that causes them.
In architecture, if the building has a crack (symptom) we will cover it (of course) but limiting ourselves to that would be taking an enormous risk. In medicine, removing a stomach pain without exploring the patient and having an explanation of what causes it, exactly the same In agriculture, applying a pesticide without having an explanation of where the pest comes from would be bread for today and great hunger for tomorrow.
Therefore, if we remember the etiology of the word symptom (symptom=signal), we must extract all possible information about it, to understand what functionality it has in the person’s life and ensure that it integrates the symptomatology, until that moment foreign and disconnected from her life, her daily life and her experience.
Therefore, our way of approaching the problem has a first objective: to understand how each aspect of it works. Once we manage to link and integrate the vital and personal context with the patient’s thoughts and behaviors, we will be able to find together productive and less superficial solutions from which the patient can obtain a substantial improvement
