How to treat OCD with Mindfulness Therapy

How to treat OCD with Mindfulness Therapy

Online Mindfulness Psychotherapist through Skype for Dealing with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Intrusive Overthinking without using anti-anxiety medications and antidepressants

Mindfulness Therapy provides an excellent approach for gaining freedom from intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors by teaching you how to work with OCD thoughts and impulses using the powerful methods of Mindfulness Therapy.

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 treating Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

GO TO MY CONTACT PAGE TO GET STARTED! FOR HELP WITH OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER 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

You might find this video informative. Contact me if you are looking for online help for OCD.

Online psychotherapy to manage obsessive intrusive thoughts

Welcome. My name is Peter Strong and I provide online therapy via Skype for anxiety disorders, including obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD. Now, OCD is a very common anxiety disorder, and it's estimated that as many as 1 in 40 people in the US suffer from some form of OCD. 

It's also quite common in young children and children often experience an episode of OCD, but usually it doesn't last very long and most children completely overcome their OCD. When OCD occurs in adults, it can often last a lot longer and is harder to overcome, mainly because as adults, we tend to get more lost in thinking, and reactive thinking is one of the main mechanisms that feeds the underlying anxiety that is fueling your obsessive compulsive disorder. 

There are various medications prescribed for treating OCD as an anxiety disorder. But they're often not very effective and sometimes those medications create additional problems. 

Types of OCD

Obsessive Checking

There are certain main categories of OCD that we can describe. The first is obsessive checking. For example, checking if you turned off all the lights or if you locked all the doors before going to bed.

There is this incessant impulse to recheck that is based on a reactive belief that things are not completed in some way, and that's based on the emotion of fear. So the fear motivates that belief that things need to be checked again, which then leads to the compulsive behavior or sometimes ritual of rechecking over and over again. Ritualized rechecking means checking things is a specific order. 

Fear of Contamination

Another very common kind of OCD has to do with fear of germs and the fear of infection, which leads to compulsive and sometimes ritualized handwashing, where you have to wash your hands in a certain way to try to eliminate the fear that you haven't washed your hands completely. The fear of infection or contamination is often accompanied by other emotional reactions that also feed that underlying fear, fear of infecting family members, guilt, and so on. 

Obsession with Symmetry

A third kind of OCD has to do with symmetry. And this is quite common with children, but also adults as well and it's that sense of having to put everything in the right place, with the right alignment and organized in the right way. For example, arranging all of the pens and pencils on your desk in a certain way, facing a certain direction and so on. That fear of things not being in the right position, in the right order is what feeds the obsessive compulsive behavior of arranging things in a specific way. 

Fear of Aggresion

Another kind of OCD that is quite common in adults is the fear of doing harm to yourself or others. For example, the fear of suddenly driving your car off the road; the fear of throwing a cup of water at someone; the fear of hurting an animal. It can take many different forms and it's very distressing if you are plagued by such aggressive thoughts. And again, this gform of OCD is often exacerbated by a great deal of secondary emotional reactivity, guilt and shame, and so on. Now, it's very rare that people with OCD-based fear of doing harm actually act out that impulse, but it's very distressing. 

Obsessive Beliefs

Another common form of OCD is based around obsessive beliefs. For example, the belief that I am going insane, or that I will be punished if I do something wrong. This obsessive belief can show itself in a religious context where I feel like I will be punished if I stopped praying or if I stop going to church. We become obsessed with a particular belief and that can lead to ritualized behaviors to counter that fear. 

This can also show itself has an obsession around physical appearance.For example, having an obsessive belief that your nose is too big or that you are ugly. This can convert into compulsive behaviors such as constantly checking yourself, constantly putting on makeup or some other action to try and alleviate the underlying fear.

Of course, all these compulsive behaviors and rituals do not actually release the underlying fear. It doesn't actually heal the underlying emotion. 

What is the best treatment for OCD

So how do we go about treating OCD? Well, the most common treatment involves medications and antidepressants. But as I have said, these typically are not very effective for the long term management of obsessive compulsive disorder. 

A very popular form of psychotherapy is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT. And this is a good choice because this approach starts to make you more aware of the reactive thoughts that are feeding your anxiety and lead to compulsive behaviors. And it is generally highly recommended that you look for a therapist who specializes in CBT or Mindfulness Therapy, which is what I teach. 

These practical psychological approaches provide the best long term solutions for the treatment of OCD. If you would like to learn more about mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, Mindfulness Therapy, then do please contact me and we can schedule a therapy session through Skype. 

Welcome. My name is Peter Strong. I am a professional psychotherapist specializing in Online Mindfulness Therapy, which I offer via Skype for the treatment of anxiety disorders, including obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD. 

If you're looking for online therapy for OCD, then I invite you to go to my website and contact me if you have any questions about the Mindfulness Therapy program that I teach online via Skype.

 If you are looking for online therapy, and a lot of people prefer online therapy these days because it's so convenient and it also gives you greater access to therapists like myself who specialize in Mindfulness Therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy. Whenever you're selecting an online therapist, do make sure that the therapist offers therapy via Skype.

It's very important that you can see each other. If you can see each other, then there's no difference in the effectiveness of online therapy by Skype compared to therapy in-person. But you do need to be able to see each other. 

So in the Mindfulness Therapy approach our focus is on helping you fundamentally change the way that you relate to those intrusive thoughts, those obsessive thoughts that trigger unwanted repetitive behaviors in the compulsive aspect of OCD, and that also cause a great deal of suffering, emotional suffering. 

So we do that by developing a conscious relationship, first of all, in which we are able to observe the fear and its thoughts without becoming identified with the fear and its associated thoughts. When you become identified with the fear, then the fear controls you. 

But when you are not identified with the fear, then the fear is reduced to what it actually is, which is an object, a mental object. So cultivating a mindful relationship with the fear means that we are learning to see the fear objectively as an object in the mind instead of becoming that fear.

So the only way to do that effectively is to meditate on the fear, because meditation is the process of cultivating a fully conscious and non-reactive relationship with whatever it is you're meditating on. In this case, we meditate on the fear because we want to break free from that habit of reactive identification, which feeds the fear. So that's a very important part of the mindfulness training that I will be teaching you during our therapy sessions together, if you choose to work with me.

There are other aspects, of course, that we have to look at in OCD. So working with the underlying emotions that are fueling the obsessive thinking and compulsive behaviors is central. But we also need to look at ways of managing the compulsive aspect. 

That is where that fear is converted into repetitive behaviors like hand-washing. So there we need to learn how to manage that impulse itself. So we use mindfulness to develop an objective relationship with the impulse so that we can see it separately as an object and not become overwhelmed by it.

This is the same principle that we have to apply when we're working with addiction. We have to learn how to break free from becoming controlled by that impulse. 

So if you'd like to learn more about Mindfulness Therapy for OCD and you like the idea of online therapy for the treatment of OCD, then do reach out to me and ask any questions you may have about this process and we can go ahead and schedule your first Skype Therapy session for your obsessive compulsive disorder or problem with intrusive thoughts.

The Mindfulness Therapy approach is very effective. Most people sees tremendous improvements in a relatively short time. I have worked with people who have suffered from intrusive thoughts for years, and it really affected the quality of their life, dramatically. Within three or four sessions, they begin to see a way out from this nightmare, which is how obsessive thoughts, intrusive thoughts are often experienced; it's like a nightmare, it is terrible, terribly painful. 

So it is possible to change and really quite quickly once you learn how to work with your emotions, to fear primarily, and with thoughts and with emotional impulses using mindfulness.

When you develop a conscious relationship without fear, it will heal. If you feed it with reactivity, including acting out the particular compulsion, that will simply feed that underlying fear. But when you change your relationship to one that's based on mindfulness, and with mindfulness comes compassion, then you'll start to see rapid healing from OCD. 

So if you'd like to learn more about how to recover from OCD using mindfulness. Then please contact me. Thank you. 

GO TO MY CONTACT PAGE TO GET STARTED! FOR HELP WITH OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER AND ANXIETY

Online psychotherapy to manage obsessive intrusive thoughts through mindfulness

Treatment for OCD without medication - Online Mindfulness Therapist for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and intrusive thoughts

Welcome! My name is Peter Strong. I'm a professional psychotherapist and I offer online therapy for anxiety and depression, addictions and also for the treatment of OCD and intrusive thoughts. 

So obsessive-compulsive disorder really describes a problem of reactive intrusive thoughts; thoughts that just keep appearing in the mind and that trigger compulsive behaviors. 

Now how do we manage these intrusive thoughts? Well there are certain things we must understand. The first is that you cannot remove intrusive thoughts by willpower. If you try to stop those intrusive thoughts you will actually end up making them stronger.

So we must take a different approach, and the approach that I teach involves mindfulness training. So mindfulness therapy teaches you how to change your relationship to those intrusive thoughts from one of fear and anger, which is also fear-based, to one of equanimity, of allowing the thought to be there without reacting to it. 

And also friendliness. This is an essential part of mindfulness training. You learn to make friends with those intrusive thoughts, even if they are negative thoughts or painful thoughts. 

The most important thing is to develop a non-reactive relationship with those thoughts and that will involve developing a friendliness-based relationship with the thoughts. Friendliness is non-reactive and it is not fear-based. So this will essentially take away the fuel that feeds those intrusive thoughts. 

Intrusive thoughts become intrusive because of the emotional charge that they have. It's not the thought itself that's the problem, it's the emotional charge that the thought has, and this is what keeps it coming back. 

We need to find a way to defuse that emotional charge, and the first way is not to feed the emotion. So that's the reason why we focus on developing a friendly non-reactive relationship with those intrusive thoughts and memories also. 

And one of the best ways to do this is to look at the imagery of these thoughts and then change that imagery. This imagery is what keeps that emotional charge alive and that's what keeps the thoughts in an intrusive and repetitive manner in the mind. 

But when you bring mindfulness to it you see the imagery clearly and then you can begin to help it change. So this is really helping the thought resolve itself. And when it changes his imagery it loses that emotional charge and then it will disappear. 

From my experience with working with people who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder and intrusive memories; thoughts including traumatic memories, I find that this Mindfulness Therapy approach to be the best approach that I have ever explored with people. It Is very, very effective. 

So if you'd like to learn more about the mindfulness approach for treating OCD and intrusive thoughts, then please email me. 

So medications are often prescribed for OCD to reduce the intensity of the anxiety. But I think you'll understand that's just treating the symptoms and not treating the underlying process that creates those intrusive thoughts.

So if you would like to learn more about how to treat OCD without using medications, but through through this mindfulness-based approach, do please contact me. 

Most people see quite dramatic changes within a matter of a few weeks once you start applying these mindfulness methods. And this will include meditation, but a different kind of meditation than you may be familiar with. 

Because, when I talk about mindfulness meditation I'm talking about meditating on the mind. 

So in this case we would actually learn to meditate on those intrusive thoughts. We would deliberately bring them into the mind and start building this non-reactive relationship and start exploring how to change the imagery of those thoughts. 

So this is training, active focused training, to help those thoughts resolve themselves and lose their emotional charge so they no longer become a problem. 

Generally, when you can do that with thoughts then the compulsive behaviors will also subside because there is nothing that is connected to the behaviors. There's nothing that can feed the compulsive behaviors. 

So if you would like to learn more and you would like to schedule some online therapy sessions with me, then please contact me. Thank you.

GO TO MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE ONLINE THERAPY VIA SKYPE FOR HELP WITH OCD AND ANXIETY

Best treatment for intrusive thoughts and images - Online Mindfulness Therapy via Skype

Welcome! My name is Peter Strong. I'm a psychotherapist based in Colorado and I offer online therapy over Skype for treating anxiety and depression, addictions and also I get a lot of requests for help with OCD and particularly with various troubling intrusive thoughts and intrusive images. 

The approach that I use is called Mindfulness Therapy, which is extremely good at helping you break free from repetitive intrusive thoughts and memories and images. 

The most important thing that we must get right, right from the beginning, is to break the habit of fear reaction to the intrusive thoughts. Many people are very distressed by intrusive thoughts and it's quite natural to react with fear and also with hatred for these thoughts. 

You just want them to go away at any cost. But the trouble is, that reactions of fear and hatred end up feeding those thoughts. It makes them more intense and that will cause them to become even more intrusive. 

From experience in the field of mindfulness psychology, that is becoming quite popular these days, it's quite clear that the winning strategy is actually to do the exact opposite of reacting with fear or aversion. And that is to develop a friendly and compassionate relationship with those intrusive thoughts and troublesome images. 

This may seem very counter-intuitive, but it is not. The way it works is that by learning how to form a non-reactive relationship with those thoughts you basically break the habit that feeds the intrusive thoughts. 

When you break a habit that feeds them, then they begin to subside and lose strengths quite naturally like any thought would do. Any thought that arises in the mind has a strength to it when it first arises, an emotional charge that keeps it in the mind, but that emotional charge quickly dissipates and for most of the time for most kinds of thoughts the thoughts simply disappear when that emotional charge has dissipated. 

But with intrusive thoughts and intrusive images and memories that emotional charge does not dissipate. The main reason why it doesn't dissipate is because you inadvertently continue feeding that emotional charge through your reactivity to the thoughts. 

Now when you to develop friendliness or compassion, which is the essence of mindfulness, towards those thoughts, you basically take away this fuel source and that allows the thoughts to naturally subside and lose their emotional charge and intensity. 

So that's the first very important principle. The way that we go about doing this and helping those intrusive thoughts neutralize themselves and lose their emotional charge is by, surprisingly enough, by meditating on those intrusive thoughts directly. 

So you deliberately bring them into the mind but you cultivate this relationship that is not reactive to those thoughts. You have to train with the thoughts in order to break free from them.

Change the imagery of the thoughts and you can greatly reduce the intensity of those thoughts.

So it's by consciously interacting with the imagery and changing it that you can have a profound effect on decreasing the intensity of those intrusive thoughts. So this is another aspect of Mindfulness Therapy that I teach during these Skype Therapy sessions. 

I will teach you how to apply mindfulness, how to meditate on your intrusive thoughts and memories. And these mindfulness-based methods are methods that you can use yourself and apply at home between sessions, which of course greatly accelerates the process of recovery. 

So please contact me if you'd like to get started with this very effective approach to working with intrusive thoughts. Thank you.

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