OCD tehnike za psiholoski rad

Learning about OCD Research shows that people with OCD tend to: give unhelpful meanings to obsessions, and use
unhelpful strategies to control obsessions.

Facts about unwanted thoughts: Everyone has unwanted or unpleasant thoughts sometimes; it’s normal. Just thinking
about something won’t make it happen. For example, if you think about winning a million-dollar lottery, it won’t
necessarily happen. Thinking a bad thought does not mean you are a bad person. It also does not mean that you want to
do anything bad.

Unhelpful strategies to control obsessions When you see your intrusive unwanted thoughts as threatening or dangerous
and causing you a lot of anxiety, it is not surprising that you want to get rid of them! However, most of the strategies that
you use to control your obsessions can inadvertently push you into traps that will make your OCD worse.

Trap 1: All the strategies you use (e.g., checking, seeking reassurance, washing, avoidance) don’t work, because your
anxiety only goes down for a short time and comes back again. But, because they do work in the short term, you are
likely to use them again the next time you have an obsession. By doing so, you never get a chance to learn more
effective strategies to manage your obsessions.

Trap 2: Using these strategies also does not give you a chance to find out whether the meaning or interpretation you
gave to the obsessions was really correct.

Trap 3: These strategies produce the opposite effect you wish to achieve. That is, even though you hoped these strategies
would help you to control the obsessions, they actually make you think about the obsessions even more often!

1) Stop and search

Next time you catch yourself having the same old obsessive thought, I want you to stop and 'search it' - don’t let it go
unchallenged. Ask yourself: "Is this my imagination working overtime here?” Write down the thought itself. Now write
three counter-thoughts. For example:

Obsessive thought: I might have injured someone without knowing it on my way home from work. (A surprisingly
common one!)
Counter-thoughts:
 Just because I can imagine something doesn’t mean it’s more likely to have happened.
 I’ve never actually heard of anyone causing someone else a major accident and not being at all aware that they
had.
 I’ve had this thought a thousand times and there’s never been any reality behind it!
It doesn’t matter what your counter-thoughts are. The obsessive thinking has remained unchallenged for long enough. So
stop letting it off the hook so easily.

2) Snap out of it!

Obsessive thoughts plunge you into a kind of counter-productive trance. When we trance out, we focus down on
specifics and lose awareness of other realities around us.

There is an old behavioural technique whereby you wear an elastic band around your wrist, but it can be unobtrusive.
Every time you catch yourself obsessing, force yourself to snap the elastic around the skin of your wrist. This can help
you break the obsessive trance. It also conditions your mind to feel 'punished' every time it goes back to the same old,
same old.
3) Know what’s real
Obsessive thinkers have a very powerful tool in their imaginations but, like the thief in the story, they’ll often assume
what they imagine to be real is real. Just because you can think something or imagine it, doesn’t mean it’s more likely to
happen.
Sit down and close your eyes. Now imagine clapping your hands. Next, really clap your hands. Which was the real clap?
Can you tell the difference? Of course you can. No one I’ve ever tried this with (no matter how obsessive and over-
imaginative) has ever not been able to tell the difference between an imaginative clap and a real one. The imagination is
a great tool, but it needs to be employed usefully and you can practice seeing it as markedly different from reality.

4) Stop obsessive thoughts by stilling your mind

Obsessive thoughts are really anxious feelings transposed into thoughts. What on Earth do I mean? Well, anxiety - like
water - 'needs' a channel, something through which to flow. If you have 'free-floating' anxiety, then thoughts will have to
be 'constructed' by your unconscious mind to provide a channel for those anxieties. So rather than trying to deal with
'what the thoughts mean', sometimes it’s best to stop the 'need' for them by lowering the stress level directly.
Remember The Invisible Man TV show? He had to give himself 'shape' by wearing clothes (when he wanted to be seen).
It’s the same with stress. When we’re stressed, we worry about all kinds of unlikely stuff and these worrisome thoughts
merely 'give shape' to anxiety.
Look at your life and seek to minimize any stresses you can. Take 20 minutes a day to relax deeply. You could listen to
a relaxation CD or just do more of the stuff you enjoy. The fact is, when you calm down, physical stress no longer has to
find obsessions to give itself shape and the obsessive thoughts can begin to disappear.

5) Watch the world (and those obsessive thoughts) go by

Ever sat at a café and just 'watched the world go by'? You observe, but are not involved. People glide in and out of view
and you remain detached and relaxed.

There is an old meditation technique which encourages detachment from the contents of your own mind. 'Watching'
obsessive thoughts in your mind from a relaxed 'distance' is very different from being in the middle of those thoughts
and feeling totally identified with them.
The more detached you become from the thoughts, the less you try to fight them. Just view them as curious nosey
visitors into your house who’ll soon be gone if you leave them alone and don’t encourage them to stay.

So if you have an obsessive thought:

 Close your eyes.

 Breathe deeply and just observe what that thought does and what it tries to make you believe, perhaps by creating
images. Just watch it curiously, like objectively observing a practiced liar that you can see right through. Don’t
fight them; just observe.
 You can then imagine watching that thought starting to disappear, like a car travelling past you, coming into view,
then continuing on its way and leaving you free of it.