Are you struggling with OCD & intrusive thoughts? CONTACT ME for details about session times & fees for Online Mindfulness Therapy via Skype
Online Mindfulness Psychotherapy via Skype for Stopping Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Intrusive Overthinking without using medications.
Mindfulness Therapy provides a very good treatment plan for overcoming intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors by teaching you how to work with your OCD thoughts and compulsions using mindfulness training and the techniques of Mindfulness Therapy.
One of the primary problems that sustains OCD is the habit of becoming identified with your OCD thoughts. We have to break free from this conditioned habitual reactivity.
This is the primary focus of Mindfulness-based Exposure Therapy for overcoming Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and is what I will be teaching you during our online sessions together.
VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE AN ONLINE THERAPY SESSION FOR HELP WITH OCD
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
Google site: Online Psychotherapy for OCD
Online Psychotherapy for managing Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Overcome OCD & Obsessive thoughts through Online Psychotherapy
You might find this video helpful and contact me if you are looking for online help for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
The principal teaching in Mindfulness Therapy for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is to learn how to meditate on your intrusive thoughts and on the impulses that lead to compulsive actions. The critical teaching here is that we must develop a conscious relationship with our thoughts and with our emotions. Mindfulness meditation provides one of the best and most direct ways of developing a conscious relationship with your mind.
The biggest problem that I come across when helping people manage OCD is that people fall into a habit of avoidance. You try to blot out or escape from those unpleasant intrusive thoughts and you react against those impulses to convert your intrusive thoughts into actions through willpower, through cultivating aversion to those compulsive impulses.
This will not work. The more that you react either through avoidance or through aversion, the stronger the underlying emotional charge will be for those intrusive thoughts and compulsive impulses.
So trying to overcome OCD through willpower or through rational thinking or some other cognitive process is not usually a very effective.
One of my main criticisms of cognitive behavioral therapy for OCD is that it tries to convince people that the intrusive thoughts and impulses are irrational and not real, and that you can simply replace them with more rational or positive thoughts and behaviors. But, in my experience, this is not an effective approach. People already know that their OCD thoughts and impulses are irrational. That is not the issue for the vast majority of people. The problem is they can't stop themselves reacting. They can't stop those repetitive thoughts and behaviors. They are just too strong.
What makes Intrusive thoughts and impulses strong is the emotional charge of those thoughts and impulses. The strength of the emotional charge is the issue, not irrational thinking, and this is the primary focus in Mindfulness Therapy. We work on those emotions. We work on neutralizing the underlying emotions, not the thoughts.
The thoughts and the behaviors are secondary, they are the logical consequences of those very strong underlying emotions. The intrusive-obsessive thoughts are simply the byproducts of the underlying emotion.
So if you want to overcome OCD, you have to work with the underlying emotions that are giving power to your intrusive thoughts or memories, including traumatic memories, as in PTSD. You have to neutralize the emotion in order for those thoughts and memories and impulses to heal and to resolve and to stop being intrusive.
The thoughts are intrusive simply because they have a high emotional charge. So the mind is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. The mind brings into into our awareness, thoughts, memories, experiences that have a high emotional charge and those that don't have a high emotional charge resolve very quickly.
So the mind is working perfectly. The problem is not the thoughts but rather the emotional charge underneath that has become fixed and has become stuck and unresolved.
Most thoughts and experiences arise and pass away quite quickly. But in the case of OCD thoughts and impulses, they don't pass away. They stay for a long period of time in the mind because of that strong emotional charge. That is what MUST heal in order for thoughts to stop being intrusive.
So we work at the emotional level. And the primary way that we work with the emotional charge that's fueling intrusive thoughts and behaviors is by learning how to meditate on our emotions and thoughts. So instead of trying to avoid our thoughts and impulses, we actually do the opposite, we bring them into full conscious awareness, which is really quite different than how they usually arise, which is subconscious and habitual. OCD is basically formed around conditioned habits. These are subconscious, habitual reactions that keep those thoughts arising over and over again. It's a habit. Habits thrive when there is very little or no consciousness.
So we need to overcome that unconscious habit. And that's a central part of the teaching of mindfulness therapy as I have developed it for treating OCD. It's about developing full conscious awareness around those specific obsessive thoughts and compulsive emotional impulses.
During meditation you learn to be fully present with your thoughts and emotions. Developing this very special quality of conscious awareness that we call "objective consciousness", where you are able to see the thoughts and emotions, but as an observer, rather like watching a movie as the audience.
The real issue here is that we become lost in the movie of our mind and that is what perpetuates OCD. So we learn to meditate on our mind. We learn to bring those intrusive thoughts deliberately into our awareness to develop this objective consciousness. We learn to be very present with those thoughts and the underlying emotion that are fueling the thoughts. This is what leads to healing. This is the necessary step for healing and recovery from OCD.
So willpower, which is really cultivating aversion towards the impulses and thoughts, is actually taking conscious awareness away from those emotions and thoughts as we become ensnared in the conditioned awareness of aversion or dislike or hatred or criticism of those thoughts and impulses.
So we need to learn to be present directly, without any reactivity at all, without any aversion, without any avoidance, without any cognitive reactivity. Trying to understand the emotion, trying to change our beliefs and things of that nature will be ineffective. Beliefs change themselves once the emotional impulse that fuels those particular beliefs changes.
You have to change things at the emotional level in order for beliefs and obsessive thoughts to change. If that emotional charge remains strong, then the obsessive belief will remain active. For example, the belief that if I don't wash my hands 10 more times, then I will be carrying those germs to my family. So I must wash my hands 10 more times. That's a belief. And what keeps it strong and active is the emotional charge of that belief. The problem is not being irrational; the problem lies in the emotional charge that cause us to attach to the belief.
The most common emotional charge around OCD is fear. So we need to learn to heal that fear.
The best way to heal fear is by developing a conscious, mindful relationship with that fear. We learn to see the fear as being like a child. It can't free itself from its own fear so it goes to its parent for comforting. We need to establish the same kind of inner relationship with our fear. The True Self-Little Self alliance is what I call it, and that is the most effective and necessary step for healing the fear that is keeping those obsessive thoughts active in the case of handwashing.
Once that fear is resolved you will no longer be dominated by those intrusive thoughts. They will cease to have any effect, any meaning. They will not convert into the impulse to wash your hands because there's no emotional charge behind them. They are neutralized and are now just empty thoughts and they just resolve to be replaced by more functional, positive thoughts quite naturally and without any effort.
So we have to work at the emotional level of OCD. That's the primary teaching in Mindfulness Therapy. And this is what I will teach you during our sessions together as an online therapist.
I will teach you these very specific mindfulness tools for overcoming your OCD.
Online therapy is an excellent option for working with anxiety disorders and also for depression and PTSD and other forms of emotional suffering that are caused by these underlying subconscious habits.
The key requirement for successful online therapy is that you can see your therapist by a Skype or Zoom or FaceTime or other video platform. Being able to see each other makes communication effective and that's necessary for good psychotherapy.
So if you are suffering from OCD and you would like to get help from an online therapist to treat that OCD using mindfulness, then do please contact me so we can schedule a Skype Therapy session.
You can expect to see very noticeable improvements in your obsessive, intrusive thoughts and compulsive actions in a relatively short time, once you start applying these mindfulness techniques that I'll be teaching you.
So please contact me so we can schedule a Skype Therapy session to help you on your path of recovery from obsessive compulsive disorder. Thank you.
Welcome! My name is Peter Strong, and I am a professional On line Therapist. I specialize in Mindfulness Therapy for treating a range of conditions, including anxiety, depression, stress, addictions and also for the online treatment of OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
So, how does Mindfulness Therapy work? Well, briefly, Mindfulness Therapy teaches you how to control the reactive thoughts that cause reactive-compulsive behaviors.
We learn how to establish what is called a Mindfulness-based Relationship with our compulsive thoughts, so that we can hold those thoughts in our awareness without becoming overwhelmed by them. When we can do this, then we can start to examine the underlying emotion that duels the obsessive thoughts - and this is essential for the treatment of OCD.
Working with that underlying emotion using mindfulness allows us to change the structure of how that emotion operates in the mind. So, once you can change the underlying emotions, then you take the fuel away from the obsessive thinking and this then stops that obsessive thinking converting into compulsive behaviors.
So, if you would like to learn more about Mindfulness Therapy for OCD, please contact me through my website. Send me an email and then we can discuss if Online Therapy for OCD is a good choice for you, and I will explain more detail about how this works, and then we can schedule a Skype Therapy Session for your OCD. So, please, if you are interested in Online Mindfulness Therapy for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, contact me now.
GO TO MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE ONLINE THERAPY VIA SKYPE
The secret is to learn how to train with your intrusive thoughts or memories using mindfulness so that you can break out of the habit of emotional reactivity that creates the anxiety or depression. I will teach you how to do this.
My name is Peter Strong. I'm a professional psychotherapist specializing in mindfulness therapy which I offer online via Skype for the treatment of anxiety disorders including obsessive compulsive disorder, using mindfulness therapy, which is very effective for helping you manage the uncontrollable habitual thought reactions that characterize OCD.
So working with intrusive thoughts is very important for managing not only OCD but also other anxiety disorders and depression as well. This reactive thinking or rumination is what fuels anxiety and depression. And the problem that most people find is that they become a prisoner of these intrusive thoughts, that they keep coming back and stimulating and recreating the anxiety or depression.
So managing intrusive thoughts is very important for working with almost all forms of emotional suffering. Mindfulness Therapy is a way of training with these thoughts. So the biggest problem typically is that people avoid intrusive or negative or emotionally painful thoughts. When you avoid intrusive thoughts you prevent them changing. You prevent them healing or resolving.
So avoidance is the first thing that we must overcome. We must not fall into the trap of avoiding intrusive thoughts or trying to get away from them or trying to push them away or trying to replace them with positive thoughts. That may seem like a good idea, but it's just another form of avoidance, and avoidance feeds the problem of habitual reactive thinking.
So we must stop avoiding and instead we actually learn to develop a conscious relationship with those disturbing intrusive thoughts based on conscious awareness, based on mindfulness. I will teach you how to meditate on these disturbing thoughts. This is the way that leads to resolution that helps end those intrusive thoughts.
Learning to meditate on them means building that conscious and non-reactive relationship to the thoughts. That's what's needed to resolve them. And it's a process whereby we train, essentially train with the thoughts, learning to be non-reactive and not becoming identified with them.
This is something that is quite easy for you to do as long as you understand clearly what you're doing and you get a little guidance, and that's what I will teach you during these online therapy sessions for OCD.
I will teach you how to work with these intrusive thoughts, how to train with them so that you can overcome this pattern of habitual identification and reactivity that simply feeds the thoughts.
So if you like to learn more about how to work with intrusive thoughts using mindfulness therapy, and really get into the heart of the problem and changing those underlying habits, then please do email me and schedule a Skype Therapy session.
People see results quite quickly when they start applying this very mindfulness and consciousness focused approach to working with intrusive thoughts on other aspects of OCD such as intrusive memories. That's a very common feature for PTSD. Working with very emotionally charged and disturbing memories that become intrusive.
We use the same kind of principles in mindfulness therapy. We do not avoid them. Instead we learn how to train with them so that we can help those memories resolve naturally so they no longer become a problem.
So if you would like to learn more, simply email me and schedule a session. I see clients via Skype. I like Skype because it allows you to see each other and that is really important for psychotherapy, because you need to understand the principles that I will be teaching, and to do that you really need to see me and I need to see you so we can establish a really good level of communication. If you do that then Skype Therapy is really no different than meeting in person.
GO TO MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE AN ONLINE THERAPY SESSION
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 is 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.
VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE ONLINE THERAPY WITH ME FOR TREATING OCD WITHOUT MEDICATION
Online Psychotherapy for managing OCD