Three Types of OCD Thoughts And How To Treat Them

Learning how each of these ideas works might help somebody manage OCD more efficiently. Each type of OCD thinking necessitates a unique coping method.

Numerous individuals with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder seek help from online discussion rooms or inexperienced therapists. Even though the counsellors are typically well-intentioned, their communication isn’t always in line with best practices. Answers that are factually true but exclude important information and cause misunderstanding may be presented.

Preventing or managing OCD thinking is sometimes the most worthwhile thing you can do. Here are the three basic types of OCD ideas and how to deal with them.

1. OCD Appraisals

There is a crucial but frequently neglected style of thinking in OCD. These are the ideas, attitudes, and beliefs that are associated with OCD. Most importantly, it symbolises the significance you give to unwanted ideas. These kinds of ideas are referred to as evaluations by cognitive therapists.

Overthinking does not have to be painful. It all relies on how they are evaluated. Anxiety will rise if you judge the concept to be hazardous or incorrect. However, if you regard them as arbitrary and useless, you will be more likely to accept moving on from them. Appraisals function as a filter, determining if your intrusive ideas will induce worry.

2. Intrusive Thinking

The majority of OCD cycles begin with unwanted thinking that results in pain or anguish. These internal triggers might be about whatever, including injury, fear, sin, or sexuality, among other things.

Intrusive thinking is defined by the fact that it is undesired and upsetting. These ideas tend to magically appear uninvitedly, and as a result, they are beyond your control. They enter like a bothersome outsider not minding their own business.

You will be disappointed over and again if you try to avoid this. Unwanted thoughts come and go and have no meaning. We’ve all got them. Even nice individuals have dark and unpleasant ideas from time to time. Efforts to repress, neutralise, or combat these ideas provide them with energy and focus which causes them to advance faster.

Accepting intrusive ideas is the best approach to dealing with them. Of course, saying this is simpler than doing it. Keep the following three ideas in mind while you seek acknowledgement:

1. Intrusive thoughts are common.
2. Intrusive ideas are worthless.
3. Intrusive impulses can’t be managed.

3. Cognitive Compulsions

Since overthinking induce anxiety, patients often engage in rituals to find relief. Such routines are a reaction to unwanted thoughts. It is an approach for reducing stress and finding comfort.

Most individuals assume that rituals are solely observable behaviours such as hand washing, lock checking, or putting items in an order. Many OCD patients, however, engage in mental routines that are imperceptible to others. These can involve mentally repeating lucky words, mentally calculating a personally comfortable number, seeking inwardly for self-reassuring proof, examining to see whether negative thoughts or sensations are present, or generally incessantly dissecting parts of internal life.

Cognitive compulsions are distinct in that they include both thinking and behaviour. For example, thinking of a “good” idea to replace a “poor” notion is not merely thinking. It is an intentional act that serves the same purpose as hand-washing in reducing anxiety. Psychological rituals are activities performed with the intent that is thus controlled.

While it is common to hear that you should not try to control your OCD thoughts, this advice does not apply to this type of compulsive thinking. Instead, the best method to deal with mental rituals—the reaction to the intruding to halt them when they happen and keep them from happening again.


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