Are Grandma's homemade chocolate chip cookies giving you a conniption fit? You might have OCD.Alcohol OCD: Conquering Fears of Accidental Ingestion & Contamination with ERP Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) has long been dubbed the "doubting disease" for its...
Feeling gaslight by OCD? Defeat OCD-related doubt through exposure and response prevention (ERP), not logic!One of OCD's most diabolical tricks is its ability to sow seeds of doubt, even about beliefs we hold strongly. Think of it as a tiny, annoying heckler in your...
OCD tends to target what we care about the most. In this case, our pets.Obsessions focusing on pets and animals incorporate all the common themes: contamination, checking, harm, scrupulosity, and sex. In this 3-part blog series, I'll discuss some of the common ways...
I’m going to do this and ride the anxiety wave no matter what. Bring on the bad thoughts.It's ERP tip time. This series of posts focuses on tips to enhance the effectiveness of your exposure and response prevention (ERP). If you're interested in more ERP tips, click...
Thanks to all who came our for our first OCD treatment group.Group Therapy for OCD Wow. Our first OCD treatment group met yesterday, and IMHO, it was an incredible experience. Thank you to all who attended and showed such courage in standing up to their OCD. I was...
There is strength in numbers. Join us for our first OCD treatment group on Saturday, 8/10/13.OCD Treatment Group! I am pleased to announce the availability of our new exposure and response prevention (ERP)-based treatment group. The intent of this group is to provide...
OCD wants us to believe that the world is ominous and threatening.OCD is a malevolent advisor that wants to deceive us about the fundamental nature of the world. It wants us to believe that the world shouldn't have any sharp edges and that our experience should be as...
Scary, unwanted thoughts sometimes masquerade as truths. Although these thoughts may have the appearance of danger, their form is intended to deceive.It's nearly Halloween, and kids around the country are digging through dusty closets and plundering the aisles of...
Emetophobia is the fear of vomiting. Although vomit phobia may appear to be a simple phobia, it may actually be a symptom of OCD, social anxiety, or agoraphobia.Flu season will be quickly upon us and with it comes an unfortunate increase in the likelihood of...
Postpartum OCD is a form of acute-onset OCD that develops after the arrival of a new baby. Parents with postpartum OCD often experience unwanted aggressive or sexual thoughts about their infant.Parents brace themselves for many changes when a new baby comes home. As...
Hope to see you in Chicago for the 2012 meeting of the International Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation!Just a few quick announcements: 1) The 2012 meeting of the International Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation (IOCDF) is just a week away. The IOCDF conference marks the...
Suicide obsessions involve the fear of killing yourself, whereas self-harm obsessions focus on the fear of self-mutilation.Thoughts of death, dying, and suicide are an unfortunate reality for many individuals. In the U.S. alone between 2008 and 2009, approximately...
Some individuals with OCD fear accidentally harming others through carelessness or negligence.The fear of harming others can be a sign of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a neurobiological condition that is associated with repetitive, intrusive, distressing...
Aggressive obsessions involve the fear of intentionally harming or killing others.Aggressive obsessions go by many names. Harm obsessions, violent obsessions, morbid obsessions...the list goes on... These symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) involve the...
Harm obsessions involve unwanted thoughts, impulses, or images about hurting or killing yourself or others.Imagine that you're leaning down to kiss your young daughter goodnight, when BAM! You are jolted by an image of yourself stabbing her to death. Alternatively,...
Mental checking can involve mentally analyzing whether or not a behavior was completed properly.Behavioral Checking (Overt Checking) Many examples of compulsive checking rituals in OCD involve direct inspection of a target stimulus by sight, sound, or feel. Common OCD...
Checking-related OCD takes innumerable forms, and includes checks for safety, understanding, and mistakes.Compulsive checking often begins innocently enough. One check here, two checks there... But OCD's greed knows no bounds. What starts out as a simple check "just...
Sexual orientiation OCD (SO-OCD), previously referred to as "Homosexual OCD (HOCD)" involves obsessions related to one's sexual orientation. Straight people with HOCD fear they may become gay (or are secretly gay); gay people may fear becoming straight.Fear of Being...
Sexual obsessions involve unwanted sexual thoughts, such as the fear of being attracted to something unwanted, taboo, or morally "unacceptable."Sexual obsessions in OCD are recurrent unwanted sexual thoughts, such as the fear of being attracted to something unwanted,...
