OCD Coping Tips

[Daniel]

Ruminating thoughts: How to stop them

Ruminating thoughts are excessive intrusive thoughts about negative experiences. They can be a symptom of an existing mental health condition or just the result of a particular instance of trauma. Read more about the causes of these thoughts and how to stop ruminating.

www.medicalnewstoday.com

Spend time in nature: A 2014 study found that people who went on a 90-minute nature walk reported fewer symptoms of rumination after their walk than those who walked through an urban area instead.

 

[Daniel]

Teletherapy providers for OCD, mostly therapists and some psychiatrists:

International OCD Foundation | Teletherapy Providers

iocdf.org

 

[Daniel]

 

[Daniel]

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285131639_Obsessive_Compulsive_Disorder

 

[Daniel]

"Compulsive drives are specifically neurotic; they are born of feelings of isolation, helplessness, fear and hostility, and represent ways of coping with the world despite these feelings; they aim primarily not at satisfaction but at safety; their compulsive character is due to the anxiety lurking behind them."

~ Karen Horney, Our Inner Conflicts (1945)

 

[David Baxter]

"Compulsive drives are specifically neurotic; they are born of feelings of isolation, helplessness, fear and hostility¹, and represent ways of coping with the world despite these feelings; they aim primarily not at satisfaction but at safety²; their compulsive character is due to the anxiety lurking behind them."

~ Karen Horney, Our Inner Conflicts (1945)

¹ but most OCD sufferers are not (fully) aware of this connection

² most OCD sufferers are away of this connection, aware that the OCD-defenses aren't working, and aware that often they are protecting themselves from something which does not exist at the moment and which may never come into existence. It's a little like fortune-telling but only on the negative aspects of the present and the future.

 

[Daniel]

BTW, it's not getting any easier to learn psychodynamic therapy:

http://karenhorney.byethost7.com/ikhs/membership/index.html

"I became interested in psychoanalysis while doing my psychiatric residency and eventually obtained analytic training by commuting between Phoenix and Los Angeles for about six years."

 

[Daniel]

Force of Habit: A Gutsy Psychiatrist Takes on the Toughest Cases of OCD

Force of Habit: A Gutsy Psychiatrist Takes on the Toughest Cases of OCD By Julie Flaherty Tufts Magazine Fall 2009 Entering a patient’s house for the first time, Michael Jenike, 67, humors the desperate pleas to turn the door handle back and forth repeatedly, ending on an even number, and...

forum.psychlinks.ca

"Thinking about and analyzing your crazy thoughts—that’s like having a skin cancer and sitting around trying to analyze why it has a certain shape and color. That’s not really the point, is it? You’ve got to find a way to cut it out or deal with it.”

The best treatment, by Jenike’s lights, is calling OCD’s bluff, with some drugs to take the edge off the anxiety.