OCD is a condition which involves obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours. It is an anxiety disorder characterised by intrusive thoughts, uneasiness, apprehension, fear or worry and repetitive behaviours aimed at reducing the associated anxiety.
People with OCD may recognise their obsessions and compulsions as irrational and may become further distressed by that realisation. Symptoms are often worse during times of stress.
Symptoms include –
- Unwanted thoughts or urges enter the mind repeatedly causing stress.
- Intrusive and distressing thoughts raise our anxiety and cause even more negative. thinking, until we find ourselves in a cycle of negative thinking.
- Compulsion to carry out an action.
- Excessive cleaning.
- Repeated checking.
- Extreme hoarding.
- Aversion to particular numbers and nervous rituals (such as opening as closing a door certain numbers of times before leaving a room).
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy helps sufferers to overcome the OCD by focusing on reducing the anxiety which is commanding these behaviours or thought patterns, rather than on the obsession.