Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is one of the psychological disorders that most limits freedom and damages people’s quality of life.
Fortunately, it is possible to manage its symptoms and learn behavioral patterns that will extinguish this disorder until it does not cause significant problems. If you are interested in knowing how psychologists work when treating OCD, keep reading
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is a psychological phenomenon described as a psychiatric syndrome in diagnostic manuals used in Medicine and Clinical and Health Psychology. It is characterized by the loss of control due to the appearance of intrusive thoughts and stereotypical actions that are difficult to repress, and that is why it has elements in common with anxiety disorders and tics.
Typically, the elements that allow identifying the presence of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in patients are two, as its name indicates: obsessions, on the one hand, and compulsions, on the other
Obsessions are fundamentally intrusive images or thoughts that arise in the person’s consciousness, “capturing” the person’s attention focus, and generating a strongly negative emotional response, linked to anxiety. These pieces of imagination can be, for example, the image of a large layer of germs invading our hands and eating them little by little, or a hole opening under our feet.
Compulsions are stereotyped actions that we feel the need to perform to make the obsession go away (for the moment) and we feel relatively good again. These actions can be physical or mental. Furthermore, it is felt that these behaviors must be carried out very carefully so that they “count” as closure of the obsession, and always in the same order; If it is not done well, it starts again. Examples of frequent compulsions are:
As a consequence of the symptoms of OCD, people who suffer from it lose a lot of time daily spending it on compulsions, compromise their physical and mental health due to their exposure to very mechanical routines and stress, and see their social life harmed. That’s why, This is one of the common reasons why many people come to Cribecca, our psychotherapy center in Seville; It is part of the psychological disorders with which psychotherapists have a lot of experience.
On the other hand, in many cases those who suffer from it also present other psychological disorders that overlap with this one, given that the fact of feeling bad makes us prone to generating additional problems that can become chronic.
What psychologists do to treat OCD
What can be done from the psychologist’s office to treat and combat the symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?
One of the most effective strategies is called Exposure and Response Prevention, which consists of separating the anxiety experienced due to obsession from carrying out compulsive behavior. That is, the patient is trained so that he can deal with this momentary discomfort, tolerating the experience without “surrendering” to the need to perform the compulsion.
In this way, the patient experiences how it is possible to endure anxiety without anything bad happening beyond the anxiety itself, and begins to stop seeing the compulsion as an inevitable way out of that situation. As the treatment progresses under the supervision of the psychology professional handling the case, the obsession and compulsion stop reinforcing each other, and that causes the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder to fade.
On the other hand, it is also usually necessary to modify the irrational belief system of each patient. This is because, On many occasions, the habit of submitting to compulsions can lead people to fully or partially believe that something very bad will happen to them if they do not put an end to the obsession through a ritual (compulsion); This is an example of magical or superstitious thinking that reinforces the existence of the disorder and at the same time arises from it.
Thus, cognitive restructuring focused on the beliefs that feed and maintain OCD is also carried out in psychotherapy sessions. This consists of leading the patient to question these beliefs, to test them and see to what extent they conform to reality.
Of course, everything we have seen about the treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is more complicated than what is summarized here. In reality, it is a process that requires the joint work of the psychologist and the patient, and the performance of exercises between sessions by the latter (following the instructions of the psychotherapist). The psychologist’s job is not only to give instructions, but also to literally “train” the person to get rid of OCD little by little, through a transformation of habits and way of thinking.
