The obsessive-compulsive disorder is one of the most disruptive anxiety disorders, it’s important don’t think the obsessions are simple thoughts, and don`t take the compulsions as weird habits. As in other cases, the decision of start a therapy depends on how high is the disease, and on the inability to perform everyday functions because of the obsessions or the compulsions.
First of all, it’s important knowing what are the obsessions and the compulsions, the obsessions are:
Recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, or images that are experienced at some time during the disturbance, as intrusive and inappropriate and that cause marked anxiety or distress. The thoughts, impulses, or images are not simply excessive worries about real-life problems. The person attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts, impulses, or images, or to neutralize them with some other thought or action. The person recognizes that the obsessional thoughts, impulses, or images are a product of his or her own mind, (not imposed from without as in thought insertion.
Compulsions are:
Repetitive behaviors (e.g., hand washing, ordering, checking) or mental acts (e.g., praying, counting, repeating words silently) that the person feels driven to perform in response to an obsession, or according to rules that must be applied rigidly. the behaviors or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing distress or preventing some dreaded event or situation; however, these behaviors or mental acts either are not connected in a realistic way with what they are designed to neutralize or prevent or are clearly excessive.
If we think about this definitions it’s easy to understand how hard it`s coping with this disorder, and how much anxiety can caused the obsessions, in fact it`s the high anxiety that makes the person try to do things to prevent it. So the compulsions reduce the anxiety, but at the same time maintain the obsessions, that’s because the person gets involved in a circle of ritualize behavior to prevent the subject of the obsessions, these compulsions might take most of the time of the person, and sometimes they even start to involve in them their families.
How can someone be involved in this kind of disorder?
Every obsession in the begging it’s only a thought, everybody has sometimes disturbing ideas as “what if I didn’t switch off the gas” or “Did I said something wrong?”, but we don’t take these thoughts seriously and after them we keep thinking about other stuff. It’s the same for the compulsions, for example who didn’t get back to his/her car to see if it was closed? It’s a common situation.
The difference between these usual situations and the obsessive-compulsive disorder it’s in the significance we gave to the thoughts, so it’s the fear that the thoughts may come true, what scares the person and makes him/her think it’s losing his her mind, and then try to neutralize the thoughts.
But when they neutralize those thoughts, even if the anxiety disappears, in a long term they are giving more magnitude to the obsession, promoting more anxiety and making the obsession appear more frequently.
When the obsession became frequent also the compulsions will increase and became more repetitive, all this course can become the center of their life’s.
When the decision of starting a therapy it’s done, the main worries are what will the therapist’ll think about them, they usually feel really ashamed by their obsessions or the compulsions. But even if the obsessions or the rituals seem weird to them, the truth it’s the obsessive-compulsive disorder it’s more common than what we might think, but only the people with a very disruptive disorder start a therapy.
In the firts sessions the knowledge of what’s happening and the relief of realizing they didn’t lost their minds, it’s a big help, after understanding the problem the therapy consists in breaking the relation between obsessions and compulsions, focusing on avoiding the rituals and the checking responses.
It’s basic to use the appropriate behavioral techniques, we will also work with different cognitive techniques, the person will learn to avoid try to control everything, and start to accept little levels of uncertainty in his/her life.