Are you struggling with OCD & intrusive thoughts? CONTACT ME for details about session times & fees for Online Mindfulness Therapy via Skype
Mindfulness Therapy provides one of the best available therapeutic approaches for freeing yourself from intrusive thoughts and behaviors by teaching you how to work with OCD thoughts and compulsions using mindfulness.
To break free from OCD and obsessive-intrusive thoughts you MUST learn how to neutralize the underlying emotion, usually fear, that fuels intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors.
This is the primary focus of Mindfulness-based Exposure Therapy for overcoming Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE AN ONLINE THERAPY SESSION FOR HELP WITH OCD AND ANXIETY
Online Therapy via Skype is available for the USA, Canada, UK & Western Europe.
Go to my main website to learn more and to schedule a Skype Therapy session: Online Mindfulness Therapy for OCD
So the way to break free from those patterns of emotional reactivity that cause our anxiety and that fuel our obsessions is to learn how to form a mindfulness-based relationship with them and to train with those those thoughts and the anxiety. We train ourself to sit with them without becoming reactive.
When you can sit with your emotions and thoughts without allowing them to proliferating further, then you are taking away the fuel source that feeds the underlying anxiety that fuels those intrusive thoughts. So learning to sit with your emotions and thoughts is the heart of the Mindfulness Meditation Therapy approach that I teach for overcoming OCD.
This approach is very effective and it's very effective because it's very direct. It is about working directly with your emotions. Just talking about your emotions is seldom enough to change the underlying reactivity that feeds your anxiety. You have to change your relationship to that reactivity directly so that you do not become blindly identified with it, blindly caught up in the reactive thinking or in the emotion itself.
The more you can develop this quality of objective consciousness where you can maintain your identity as your True Self, the Observer, looking at your emotions and thoughts as objects in the mind the freer you become and the faster the recovery.
With training you see the thoughts and the anxiety as simply objects in the mind that you can observe and respond to with compassion. That's the power of this teaching - it frees you, it liberates you from emotional suffering by allowing you to strengthen your perspective as your True Self.
Connection with that True Self is exactly what the anxiety needs in order to heal itself. So your True Self is fearless by nature because it is non-reactive.
The anxiety is completely fear-based. In order to resolve fear, it needs to come into contact with that which is fearless and that is your True Self. So this is what we cultivate by meditating on our thoughts and the emotions that fuel those thoughts, which is generally fear.
So do please contact me if you'd like to learn more about this approach. And if you're interested in online help for overcoming your obsessive compulsive disorder, or if you would like help with working with intrusive thoughts and images, including traumatic memory images, which are often at the heart of OCD.
So please contact me if you would like help in overcoming OCD, and also ask any questions you may have about online psychotherapy for obsessive compulsive disorder. Thank you.
Through Mindfulness Therapy we learn how to neutralize obsessive and intrusive thoughts, images and memories as well as neutralizing the compulsive impulses of compulsive behaviors.
Welcome! My name is Peter Strong. I'm a professional psychotherapist specializing in Mindfulness Therapy for the treatment of anxiety and depression and OCD and other emotional problems using mindfulness therapy and mindfulness-based techniques rather than medications or the conventional talking therapy that you may be familiar with.
Mindfulness Therapy really tries to address the underlying process that causes your anxiety or depression or problem with intrusive thoughts and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
So Skype Therapy for OCD is one of the services that I offer. All my online therapy is done via Skype. It's very important that you use Skype or FaceTime or similar video platform because it's important that you can see each other during these sessions. This makes the therapy sessions much more effective.
During the online Skype therapy sessions that I offer I'll be teaching you how to work with the two primary elements of OCD.
So excessively worrying about that and obsessing over hygiene is one kind of reactive thinking that greatly accentuates the underlying anxiety. The thinking fuels anxiety feeds anxiety and it intensifies the anxiety. So that's one kind of thinking process.
The other kind of problems that people run into with thinking is intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts, intrusive images, intrusive memories. So this is sometimes called "Pure O" sort of a pure form of obsession that is caused by intrusive thoughts that really upsets the minds and cause considerable anxiety.
So that's one side of the work. We work with these obsessive or intrusive thoughts. On the other side of OCD is working with the compulsive behaviors.
So the thoughts convert into behaviors like hand washing or trying to clean every surface in the house multiple times over, or whatever it might be. The compulsive behavior is a response to the obsessive thinking.
We would typically imagine the obsessive-compulsive thought or activity, we would play it through in the mind and we would watch to see what kind of emotion is triggered. Typically, fear or anxiety, but it could be other emotions as I say. When we see that emotion we then start to build a relationship with the emotion itself based on consciousness, that's where the mindfulness comes in.
The second part of our work in mindfulness therapy is to see how those emotions work, to look at their structure. And it's become very clear to me through working with people over many years now, that the primary structure of the emotions, it is not thoughts, it is imagery.
So the thoughts are products of the emotion, but what causes the emotion is imagery, psychological imagery. The way that you see that fear or anxiety in the mind is what determines its intensity and that in turn leads to the propagation of thoughts and compulsive activities.
So we examine this imagery in great detail during mindfulness work on our OCD. We literally meditate on those thoughts and the emotions underneath the thoughts to see how they work, to look at their imagery, to see what it is about the imagery that causes them to be intense, that creates that intense emotional charge.
So if you would like to learn more about how to work with either obsessive thinking or intrusive thoughts, memories and images, and also to work with compulsive behaviors, then please contact me. Let's schedule an online therapy session via Skype.
Skype Therapy for OCD is a very effective way of learning how to manage OCD. Most people see quite dramatic changes after the first three or four sessions. Once you learn how to apply mindfulness to work with your OCD you'll see very encouraging results.
So if you're interested in Skype Therapy for OCD then please reach out to me. Contact me. Tell me more about your particular situation. Tell me what times and days work for you and then we can go ahead and schedule the first Skype Therapy session to help you overcome your obsessive-compulsive disorder.
GO TO MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE AN ONLINE THERAPY SESSION FOR HELP WITH OCD AND ANXIETY
Welcome! If you'd like to learn how to cure OCD intrusive thoughts then you might want to consider a few sessions of online Mindfulness Therapy with me.
Mindfulness Therapy is a very effective way of working with intrusive thoughts and obsessive thoughts in general. It helps you learn how to change the relationship that you have to thoughts in general, so that you don't become overwhelmed by them, that you don't become identified with thoughts.
That is the first key training in Mindfulness Therapy, is how to be with your thoughts without becoming reactive, without becoming identified with them, without allowing them to dominates the mind. It is possible to sit with your thoughts and see them as objects in the mind the same way that you could sit with a dangerous animal and watch it, without becoming overwhelmed with fear.
Let us imagine a trip to the zoo. We see animals in the zoo that could be very dangerous if we didn't have a good relationship with them. In that case we are separated by the cage that the animals are in. It is possible to put your thoughts into a cage too if necessary.
But the thing is, when you work with your thoughts using mindfulness you can basically create the right internal situation whereby you can be with that thought without becoming overwhelmed.
So the primary way we do this is by actually meditating on our thoughts. We deliberately choose to meditate on our intrusive thoughts but we do it under controlled circumstances. We make the choice to invite this thought into the mind for the purpose of training with it, so that's quite different.
The main problem with OCD intrusive thoughts is that they there's no consciousness involved. They just arise spontaneously in a habitual conditioned manner and then create emotional suffering. But we can change that by choosing to invite a scary thought into the mind, but on our terms, and that makes all the difference.
So building a real relationship with the thoughts in which we learn how to become less and less reactive is a primary function that we develop during mindfulness therapy sessions. Another thing that is quite interesting and that I will teach you and show you how to do during these therapy sessions, is how to work with the imagery of the thoughts.
So any thought that has an emotional charge to it will have associated emotional imagery. The most simple example of that is that the emotional charge of the thought appears very large and very close and usually above us.
That's why we say "I feel overwhelmed" by the thought, because literally we seem the thought above us. And it has to be big in order to be overwhelming. And it has to be very close to be overwhelming. So the imagery of the thought is really quite important. Actually, I would say it's vitally important.
When we meditate on our thoughts consciously we get to see this imagery and when we see the imagery then we can change that imagery because all emotional imagery is a product of habit, of conditioning, and habits can be changed when we develop a conscious relationship with the habit.
So we look at the imagery of our emotions, our emotionally charged thoughts, and we help change that imagery and diminish the emotional charge of the thoughts.
So this is working with the emotions underneath the thoughts in a very productive and positive way that leads to the resolution and basically the healing of the thoughts so it no longer has that emotional charge that makes it intrusive.
So this is a very effective way of working with obsessive thoughts, with intrusive thoughts, and for basically neutralizing them so that they don't catalyze compulsive behaviors which is the second stage of OCD.
After the intrusive thoughts comes compulsive behaviors. But those behaviors are powered by the emotional charge of the intrusive thoughts.
So if you would like to learn more about how to cure OCD, how to basically neutralize those intrusive thoughts and break out of the very scary place that OCD intrusive thoughts create, do please send me an email and let's schedule a trial therapy session via Skype, and I will show you how to work with your thoughts using mindfulness.
Mindfulness Therapy is by far the most effective method out there, besides CBT, and most people that I work with see quite dramatic changes within the first three to four sessions. So please contact me and let's schedule a session. Thank you.
VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE ONLINE THERAPY WITH ME FOR HELP WITH OCD AND ANXIETY
Welcome! My name is Peter Strong. I'm a professional mindfulness-based therapist, based in Colorado, USA and I offer online therapy for anxiety disorders, depression, addictions, and particularly for the treatment of OCD.
I get a lot of requests for help with obsessive-compulsive disorder and particularly with intrusive thoughts. Many people suffer quite severely from intrusive repetitive thoughts that just basically obsess the mind and cause a lot of suffering and lead to a lot of unwanted behaviors to try and avoid and get away from these intrusive thoughts.
So if you're looking for an online therapist for OCD and you would like help in working with intrusive thoughts then please go to my website and learn more about the online therapy service that I offer for treating OCD and anxiety disorders in general. And please send me an email if you have any questions.
Most people really enjoy the mindfulness approach because it's very practical. It teaches you how to neutralize those intrusive obsessive thoughts.
Trying to approach the problem of obsessive and intrusive thoughts by some sort of rational thinking approach is just not going to work. In fact you already know that these intrusive thoughts are not rational and not likely to occur, but it doesn't stop them.
This is because the intrusive thoughts have a very strong emotional charge and it's that emotional charge that causes them to stay in the mind and to repeat over and over again. It is the emotional charge that we have to work with and that's the primary focus in Mindfulness Therapy.
It doesn't matter whether the thought is rational or irrational. That's not the point. The point is that you have to neutralize that emotional charge to allow that thought to subside and heal.
If you really want to stop intrusive thoughts you must neutralize the emotional charge of those thoughts. So the way we do this in Mindfulness Therapy is by actually meditating on those intrusive thoughts.
We don't try to run away from them, we don't try to avoid them. We actually meditate on them, which means we hold them as a primary object in our meditation. We look at the thoughts and we start to change our relationship to them. That's the first and most important thing.
So typically, what happens with a highly charged emotional intrusive thoughts is that when ever they arise in the mind we become completely consumed by them, we become overwhelmed by the thoughts, we become identified with them.
So the first step in mindfulness training is learning to literally sit with those thoughts without becoming reactive, without reacting with fear, which is the primary energy in intrusive thoughts, or aversion, some form of hatred or resistance. We have to learn to sit with it and not react.
That is the first training and the only way to do that is to consciously and actively focus on that thought; on training in that way, to sit with the thought. You can't do it by some other indirect method. You must work directly with those intrusive thoughts.
The second part of our mindfulness work is becomes possible once you stop reacting or identifying with those obsessive thoughts. Then we work on neutralizing the emotional charge, and that really is mostly about working with the imagery of the thought, because emotions work through imagery and very highly emotional thoughts or images, for that matter, or memories or other intrusive type imagery.
The thing that makes it emotionally powerful is the properties of that imagery itself, how you see it and the mind is what creates the emotion itself. So we look at this imagery and then we start to change it, because when you have a non-reactive conscious, mindful relationship with the intrusive or obsessive thought, then you can begin to explore changing it, changing its properties. For example making it a lot smaller.
So an obsessive or compulsive thought, by its nature will be very large. The imagery is probably also going to be very close. And that is what creates the intense emotional charge of the thought: it's position, its size, and color. All of these details of the imagery are what actually cause the emotion.
So if you'd like to learn practical ways of working with your OCD and intrusive thoughts, then please reach out to me and schedule a Skype Therapy session.
VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE AN ONLINE THERAPY SESSION FOR HELP WITH OCD AND ANXIETY
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