OCD Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Obsessions and compulsions are often grouped together with the term OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In analytical hypnotherapy these terms are separated to reveal two distinct types of activity:
| Obsessions | Are unwanted thoughts, feelings, urges or impulses, such as the need to check or count. |
|---|---|
| Compulsions | Are responses to anxiety and include things like nail biting or hair pulling. |
People tend to be mainly Obsessive or Compulsive (rather than equally both). Obsessive and Compulsive symptoms can both be driven by the same unconscious anxiety. In either case, once the unconcioue anxiety is resolved though hypnoanalysis, the symptoms will disappear completely and permanently.
Some common forms of Obsessive Compulsive behaviours are:
Toilet Related Phobias
Toilet related phobias are some of the most common form of obsessional symptoms. Often preventing people from going to unfamiliar places for fear of using a strange or dirty loo. Touching the toilet is a common worry.
Some sufferers obsess after visiting the toilet, and find themselves playing back the visit, checking and reassuring themselves that they did not touch anything nasty, or did wash their hands correctly.
Some people have elaborate toilet cleaning rituals which must be performed before they feel safe to sit down. Another strategy employed by sufferers is using a piece of loo roll on the seat before use, and even using toilet paper to open and close the cubical door.
Toilet related phobia can be associated with Paruresis (shy bladder – the fear of urinating in the company of others) and Parcopresis (bashful bowel – the inability to defecate in public toilets), leaving the sufferer unable to go
if not completely happy.
Fear of Chemical Contact
The fear of chemical contact and contamination are sometimes associated with OCD. They often take two forms:
The first is the fear that one can be made ill by day to day contact with household
chemicals, such as bleach or caustic soda. The sufferer may take excessive precautions when cleaning, or worry about the effects of cleaning products. They may also obsess about the contamination of food with chemical residues from crockery or cutlery.
This obsessing may extend into worry about shards of broken glass contaminating food. They may obsess about being near a smashed bottle in a resturant, or even refuse to eat perfectly good food away for fear of contamination.
The second form, is a fear of contamination from an outside source, either accidental or malicious. This leaves the sufferer affraid or unable to eat processed foods, or go to places where there is a perceived risk of contamination. In this form, the fear often modifies with the prevailing news trends. As one risk factor wains within the mind, it is replaced by a new set of compelling avoidances.
Obsessive Cleanliness
Hating dirt, dust, or uncleanliness is an extremely common anxiety. It is often linked with other anxieties, such as toilet phobia, or be can be coupled with a cleaning ritual. Many sufferers are also excessively neat and fastidious. And while there is nothing wrong with being a tidy person, sufferers can easily cross the line. A basic rule of thumb is that if you feel like you are missing out on other aspects of your life because you are spending too much time arraigning, neatening and straightening, maybe its time to sort yourself out rather than your possessions!
Disgust of Unclean Eating
This disgust is not simply a food phobia
, although both obsessionals and compulsives can also suffer from food phobia. Food phobia is an irrational fear of eating a particular food, and is often associated with Emetophobia (the fear of being sick or seeking someone be sick). Unclean eating may revolve around a certain food, but because that food is seen as dirty, rather than a fear of the food itself. This disgust is a sublimated form of germ phobia, rather than a classic phobic response.
Food disgust may centre upon eating with hands, or with unclean cutlery, or with foods that are of suspicious origin. Some Obsessionals are also given to strange and obsessive diets.
Getting ill or Contaminated
Many sufferers are wrongly dismissed as being simply hypochondriac. Hypochondria is just one way in which obsessional anxiety can manifest itself. Obsessional anxiety may form the basis of a persistent fear of a singular illness, or this fear may be a fear of contracting a generalised nasty illness
from a specific set of circumstances (like red blood like stains).
Fear of illness is an extremely effective masking symptom, in that the sufferer may embark upon an number of health related wild goose chases before realising that they are in fact suffering form obsessional anxiety, the symptom of which is a fear of mental or physical illness. If this is the case, once that anxiety is removed, the person can go on to have a natural relationship with their general health.
Handwashing
Hand washing can be both an obsessional and a compulsive trait. If washing is developed into a grooming ritual its obsessive, otherwise it is compulsive.
The other differentiator is the amount of distress caused by not washing your hands. If you feel that you must wash your hands, that tends to be obsessive. If you simply wash your hands as an anxiety habit, then that would suggest a compulsion. The key difference is that the compulsive feels bad if they refrain, and the obsessive does not.
Nail Biting
Nail biting is usually a compulsive activity conducted in response to boredom or anxiety. Nail biting is sometimes, yet not always, associated with other Oral habits such as over–eating, and smoking. On its own, nail biting can often be treated by suggestion therapy, when accompanied by other (often more severe) symptoms, analytical hypnotherapy is usually more effective.
Obsesses about Own Body (or part of body)
There is an entire spectrum of body related obsessions (including Body Dysmorphia, Anorexia and Bulimia). As an analytical hypnotherapist I see all of these as an obsessional anxiety, fixating on one body issue, rather than another body issue. After all no one is perfect, but the pursuit of perfection is essentially an obsessional trait. Seen in this light, it is as easy to get caught up in the size of your nose, as with how much you weigh, a lump on your face, or any other issue that may present itself for scrutiny. Once the anxiety is removed, the person is able to take a more balanced view of their perceived failings.
Neatness and Order
Obsessive order and neatness can cause real distress to both the sufferer and those around them. This symptom goes beyond simply being orderly and methodical
to a position where things must be arraigned in perfect order. Disorder leaves the sufferer uncomfortable and unsettled, with an urge to rectify the perceived wrong. This often causes exasperation, humour or annoyance to others around them who cannot see
the disorder. I know of a school teacher who was driven to distraction by his pupils deliberately miss–aligning the neat row of pens on his desk, for the fun of watching him straighten them again. Try as he might, he could not resist the urge to put his desk back in order, even to suffering the hoots of delight from the cruel children.
Environmental Sensitivity
Environmental sensitivity often presents itself as an impairment in function if certain conditions are present, or if others are not met. For instance Shy bladder, is a form of environmental sensitivity in that the sufferer cannot go to the loo if others are present.
Other form of environmental sensitivity include not being able to work if strangers are present or if there is excess noise, or needing to sit in your
chair, or drink from your
own mug. Heat and light are also issues for the environmentally sensitive, often finding themselves in places that are too cold, or too hot, or too draughty, or too stuffy.
Getting Rid of OCD
Analytical hypnotherapy can be an effective and empowering process for people with OCD, and can transform their lives within around 6 sessions. It works by uncovering the unconscious root cause of the problem. Once the root cause is known, the person is liberated from their symptoms for good. With analytical hypnotherapy we are aiming for a total and lasting solution, not just a coping strategy.
Analytical hypnotherapy works to restore the minds natural healing process. Everyone has this natural healing process but sometimes it can become blocked. We then begin to store up negative emotions rather than letting them go, just like a fallen tree holding back a river. OCD symptoms can be thought of as your minds response to pressure from those blocked emotions. Finding and removing the block with will restart the healing process, much like removing the tree from the river will get the water flowing freely again.
Hypnoanalysis is a unique form of therapy because:
- It has been in use since 1974, so has stood the test of time.
- It is natural – it simply speeds up your OWN healing process.
- It completely unlike any form of CBT, NLP or
mind programming
- It requires no belief for it to work!
- It tackles the root of the problem, not just the symptom.
- It is about fast, lasting results.
Talk to Steve today obout getting rid of OCD
Steve Williams BA, MSc, DHP
Suite 214, 111 Piccadilly, MANCHESTER, M1 2HX
Office:01942 673 195 Mobile:07758 265 520