A person who frequently experiences obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours might have received a diagnosis of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, OCD. “Obsessive thoughts” describes unwanted and unpleasant thoughts, images or urges that repeatedly enter your mind, causing feelings of anxiety, disgust or unease. “Compulsive behaviours” describes repetitive behaviours or mental acts that you feel you need to do to temporarily relieve the unpleasant feelings brought on by obsessive thoughts.
For me, obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours as manifestations of distress, rather than symptom of mental illness, but if you have experienced them, you might also have received a severe mental health diagnosis such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, or you might be neurodivergent, or struggling before or after pregnancy.
If we find ourselves in an ongoing challenging situation, experiencing stress and anxiety, but we can’t escape from that situation, then it’s possible for our threat response (fight/flight/freeze) to become highly active and obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours might be the result: they represent our brain’s attempt to protect us by getting us back to a sense of being in control when we feel out of control. This is an adaptive way of coping that might work at the time, but, once the body and brain have learned to use obsessions and compulsions to survive they tend to repeat that in the future, which means that the individual is likely to experience them whenever their threat response is again triggered in that way and this can have adverse effects on their self-esteem, energy levels, work and relationships.
In therapy I provide neuroscience psychoeducation so that my clients can fully understand what’s going on and why, that their bodies and brains are reacting in biologically correct and predictable ways: they are not broken, their feelings are entirely valid. I then teach them how to notice that their threat response has been triggered and what kind of people/situations/places/relational dynamics tend to cause that (different for each of us). Then we focus on the skills, tools and tactics needed to find their way to rest and digest, as soon as possible, so that they can think straight and feel comfortable, both physically and emotionally. We also spend time considering new choices about developing healthy habits (physical, emotional and cognitive) which will help to ensure that their threat response is less sensitive (less easily triggered, less often).
I then invite them to consider their family of origin experiences so that they can understand why they interact with others in the way that they do, can consider whether that’s hindering them, and if so, how they can learn to communicate more authentically and get what they want and need from their relationships. I also invite them to tell me their story, when they’re ready, to consider their ancestors experiences (inherited family trauma may be relevant), their childhood experiences, and everything that they have experienced since then, good and bad, to help them to make sense of why they may feel the way they do, and to fully appreciate the context of their lives. Once they understand their sense of self and their “life script”, they can start to consider how they might like to change them for the better.
The combination of gaining new perspectives about what’s going on and why, making new choices about what to do about the things you want to change, developing new skills and healthy habits, and feeling the benefits of those can lead to a real sense of freedom and agency, which is so important for our wellbeing: freeing yourself from the burden of obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours really is possible.
You can find out more about inherited family trauma here https://www.theexetercounsellor.com/epigenetics-and-inherited-family-trauma/.
If you type “anxiety” into the search box on my blog page https://www.theexetercounsellor.com/blog/ here you will find many of my blogs with ideas for easing/understanding anxiety.
You can find out more about my therapy and fees here https://www.theexetercounsellor.com/how-it-works/ and options for contacting me here https://www.theexetercounsellor.com/contact-me/.
