What Is An Obsession? Causes, Symptoms And Treatment
Most of us have gone through times when, due to times of anxiety, stress or difficult situations, we have experienced a series of recurring and uncontrollable ideas or thoughts that have generated high levels of anguish.
However, although these experiences are generally normal, we run the risk of these thoughts becoming obsessions To prevent this from happening, it will be very useful for us to know what these obsessions consist of, as well as their typologies and the resources we have at our disposal to combat them.
Obsessions, or obsessive thoughts, are thinking dynamics in which the person’s mind clings to a fixed idea Usually, these ideas are associated with some event, event or situation that represents a concern or concern that generates feelings of fear or anguish.
For a thought to be considered obsessive, it must meet a series of characteristics. The first is that These ideas must be repetitive and recurring ; that is, they constantly appear in the person’s mind.
Furthermore, they must also arise involuntarily and be uncontrollable; This means that, no matter how much the person tries not to think about them or eliminate them from their head, these ideas will come back to mind, perhaps even more strongly.
The most common causes that give rise to these obsessions or obsessive thoughts are states of anxiety and psychological stress In both cases, the person experiences a series of recurring worries or fears that also tend to worsen the symptoms of anxiety.
Therefore, the person is involved in a vicious circle in which they suffer from anxiety that causes a series of obsessive thoughts, which in turn contribute to further fueling the symptoms of said anxiety.
The ways in which these obsessive thoughts manifest themselves are many and very diverse, and In most cases they will be influenced by the personality traits of the subject , as well as the context that surrounds it. Obsessive behaviors related to order, cleanliness or physical appearance are the reflection of these ideas that cloud the person’s mind.
What differentiates a worry from an obsession?
Although it is true that a concern can become an obsession, and in turn this can acquire a degree of chronicity that makes it pathological there are a series of differences that allow us to distinguish between a worry and an obsessive idea.
Unlike more normative category worries, obsessive thoughts have a much higher degree of intensity, frequency and duration, so they are also likely to cause much more discomfort.
Furthermore, in the case of obsessions, the subject has almost no control over them. That is to say, show much greater resistance to the person’s attempts to eliminate them from their head
Finally, according to a study carried out by Paul Salkovskis, professor of clinical psychology and applied sciences at the University of Bath, it was revealed that 90% of mentally healthy people experienced a series of intrusive ideas related to worries that caused a high degree of distress and discomfort, but that did not reach the category of obsessions.
When can they be considered pathological?
As we have seen previously, a large number of people tend to experience a series of obsessive thoughts which do not have to be linked to any type of psychological pathology. However, there is a risk that these obsessions may develop into chronic obsessive thoughts, which can lead to become an obsessive disorder and significantly interfere with the person’s daily life.
Normative obsessions or recurrent concerns tend to disappear over time, or once the problem has been resolved. However, these thoughts can be very distressing and stressful.
When these thoughts become serious obsessions and are accompanied by compulsive acts aimed at reducing discomfort, it is very possible that the person suffers from the well-known obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In this case, the obsessions must be classified as pathological, since they are part of a much broader symptomatology.
Furthermore, although it is not a general rule, The thoughts typical of this type of psychological alteration do not have to be subject to reason That is, the ideas or concerns that flood the patient’s mind may be incoherent or have no rational basis.
For example, the person may think uncontrollably and constantly that if they leave the light on something bad may happen to them when they leave the house, therefore they perform compulsive and constant checks. This shows how thoughts are not necessarily logical, since they unite two facts that actually have nothing to do with each other.
Finally, although the person may come to accept that their ideas do not come from any logical principle, they are not able to eliminate these obsessions at all.
Types of obsessions
Regarding the content of obsessive thoughts, these can be as varied as there are people in the world. However, there are a series of relatively recurrent obsessions both within the population that suffers from OCD, and in those people who, due to anxiety or stress suffered, experience this type of uncontrollable ideas.
In cases where obsessions are part of a diagnosis of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, the person will need to visit a mental health professional to start therapy appropriate to their condition.
However, if these thoughts are only due to a particularly complicated stage of life, there are some techniques or steps that the person can carry out in order to reduce or eliminate these thoughts. These techniques include:
