Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder
OCD Simple Description
Intense, anxiety-producing thoughts which can drive excessive repetitive behaviors or rituals.
OCPD Simple Description
Interfering preoccupation with perfectionism, orderliness, and control.
The essence of OC disorder, or OC personality, is the avoidance of anything that arouses anxiety or other disturbing emotions.Thus, the OC individual often finds it difficult to come to therapy and stick with it unless there is a circle of support that is very assertive and lovingly firm. However, there are individuals motivated toward therapy by the suffering from their symptoms who are ready to do whatever it takes to live a happier, more fulfilling life.
People with obsessions and/or compulsions have an over-focused brain, according to Dr. Daniel Amen. The cingulate girus located in the region between the two halves of the brain is over-active. So when an obsessed mind grabs onto an idea or a behavior, it doesn’t want to let go. Shifting gears is difficult, and thus, it is one of the skills important to learn in treatment.
Treatment consists of an initial stabilization phase in which skills for moderating one’s anxiety are learned and practiced. It is best to learn these skills before trying to take away the symptoms, as the symptoms have served a survival function for a long time. EMDR is a comprehensive therapy approach that can work with OCD symptoms includes facing anxious situations in imagination so that there is no outlet for acting out the obsessions or compulsions behaviorally. This enables the client in a safe and supportive environment to learn that he is fully capable of handling the very feelings and experiences which he has been irrationally avoiding.
Because there are generally some childhood issues that contributed to the disorder, work on attachment issues is often a necessary part of the therapeutic process. Thus, an EMDR therapist will encourage you to focus on memories about your upbringing and any strict religious training that engendered guilt about lack of perfection (commonly associated with OCD issues). A motivated client, with or without a support system, who works with an EMDR therapist experienced with OCD will usually make good progress in six months to two years. Sometimes the frequency of sessions can decrease as treatment progresses.
The individual suffering from OCD will be able to develop a tolerance to situations that give rise to his symptoms. He can learn and practice self-soothing skills, which lay the groundwork for the essential task of overcoming the deeply ingrained tendency to avoid the things, people, emotions, thoughts, situations, and places which trigger worries about perfection and other core issues.
The two greatest challenges, however, for OCD sufferers is 1) that anxiety will increase at certain phases of treatment, which leads to 2) the desire to end treatment prematurely: it may be good to plan a session that includes the client’s circle of supporting family members and friends when termination of therapy is being considered. Family and friend supporters could also attend a Celebration Session when treatment has been completed, which is that point at which the OCD sufferer has learned to face anxiety and other strong emotions without the obsessions or compulsions which now have lost their grip on the client’s life.
Still, at this time in history, OCD or OCPD are not considered curable. There seems to be a biochemical components that often requires medications for a short or long term. Clients may need to come back for check-ups during times of stress and for as long as needed. But this is a giant leap from a life lived in the prison of mental obsessions and/or behavioral compulsions. Our EMDRIA-Certified EMDR therapists specializing in OCD and OCPD can help such an individual make gentle, steady progress toward developing the skills to manage their symptoms successfully. We hope you will make a deep commitment to your own increased well-being and make a call to get started today.
San Diego therapist, OCD, Obsessions, Compulsion
