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 Managing Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Intrusive Overthinking without relying on medications.
Mindfulness Therapy provides an effective therapeutic approach for reducing obsessive-intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors by teaching you how to work with your OCD thoughts and impulses using mindfulness training and the methods of Mindfulness Therapy.
To break free from OCD and obsessive-intrusive thoughts you MUST learn how to neutralize the underlying fear, that fuels obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors.
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 therapy sessions together.
GO TO MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE ONLINE PSYCHOTHERAPY WITH ME FOR HELP WITH YOUR 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
Online Mindfulness Psychotherapist via Skype for Overcoming Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Intrusive Overthinking without relying on drugs.
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're 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.
If you wish to talk with a psychotherapist online, then visit my website to learn about Online Psychotherapy through Skype for the treatment of anxiety and depression, addictions, OCD, PTSD, Emotional Trauma and other forms of emotional suffering not requiring medical treatment.
Conventional talk therapy can be useful, but often common talk therapy does not transform the the underlying process that is the real cause of your emotional suffering.
The same can be said for medications - prescription medications may reduce symptoms for a while, but medications will not transform the underlying process that produces your anxiety or depression. This requires good quality psychotherapy.
The type of psychotherapy that I offer is called Mindfulness Therapy, which can be quite powerful for managing chronic anxiety as well as for treating depression or other emotional issues caused by habitual reactive thinking. Most of my clients see dramatic reduction in the level of anxiety and depression after 3-4 sessions of Skype Therapy.
Welcome. My name is Peter Strong and I'm a professional mindfulness therapist using a system of mindfulness therapy that I developed many years ago now, that's extremely effective for treating obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD.
So, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for OCD basically teaches you how to break free from the habit of reactive thinking, that is falling into the stream of reactive thinking, of rumination or worrying that might get triggered in the minds.
This is a very important step in cutting off the fuel that that fuels anxiety or depression. So, OCD is simply the result of a process where we become habitually identified with thoughts, and when we become trapped in our thinking. The result is that the thoughts tend to propagate more thoughts and this amplifies the reactive thinking, which in turn amplifies the underlying emotional obsession or anxiety or depression that feeds the OCD.
So, learning to break this habit of reactive identification is extremely important and is the principal focus of the mindfulness therapy that I teach online via Skype.
If you'd like to learn more about online mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for OCD, simply go to my websites and then email me. You can ask any questions you might have about mindfulness therapy for OCD and I'd be happy to explain to you how the mindfulness therapy approach can work for you.
When you feel ready you can schedule a Skype therapy session with me at a time that works for you, and then begin to teach you how to apply mindfulness for overcoming obsessive thinking and for overcoming the anxiety and depression that's associated with obsessive-compulsive thinking.
GO TO MY CONTACT PAGE ME TO LEARN HOW TO START SKYPE THERAPY WITH ME
How to treat OCD without medication through Online Mindfulness Therapy for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and intrusive thoughts.
Welcome! My name is Peter Strong and I provide online therapy via Skype for the treatment of anxiety, for depression and also for working with obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD.
So if you're interested in online treatment for OCD without using medications, then do please go to my website and learn more about this online therapy service.
Mindfulness Therapy is very good for treating all forms of anxiety disorders because it teaches you how to work with your thoughts in a very direct and practical way, and that is essential in working with OCD.
We have to basically change the way that we relate to our thoughts. Some people teach that we have to overcome irrational thoughts. I do not agree with that. Whether the thoughts are rational or irrational is of no particular importance. What matters is the emotional charge of those thoughts and the nature of your relationship to them.
So typically when we experience an obsessive thought or an intrusive thought we become immediately identified with that. This is called reactive identification, and then we tend to react even further to intrusive thoughts by creating more thoughts that feed the first intrusive thought, and that is called reactive proliferation of thoughts.
So this is what typically happens out of habit for most people with OCD. But with mindfulness training and the methods that I will teach you during our online therapy sessions, you will begin to be able to break free from the compulsive aspects of those intrusive thoughts.
You do not require medication to treat OCD. Medication simply masks the intensity of the emotion, but it doesn't do anything to change the underlying process that is causing those intrusive-obsessive thoughts to arise in the mind, and that's what we address with Mindfulness Therapy.
So the first step is learning to be with your intrusive thoughts without becoming overwhelmed by them. And then when you establish this relationship with them, then you can begin to change the emotional component of those intrusive obsessive thoughts, and I will explain in great detail how to do this.
If you want to work with me, if you would like to learn how to overcome OCD without resorting to medications, then please go to my website and send me an email so we can schedule a trial therapy session for you.
With the mindfulness approach, because it is so practical and so focused on overcoming the underlying cause of your OCD, most people will see significant changes after the first three to four sessions with me. It doesn't take that long to break out of these habitual patterns of reactive thinking and reactive identification with thoughts.
It just requires some skillful guidance and then practice of the methods that I will teach you. So please contact me if this interests you and let's get started. Thank you.
GO TO MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE ONLINE THERAPY VIA SKYPE WITH ME FOR HELP WITH OCD
Welcome! My name is Peter Strong. I specialize in Mindfulness Therapy which I teach online through Skype. One particular area that I work a great deal with is obsessive-compulsive disorder.
So I offer online Mindfulness Therapy for OCD by Skype.
So at the heart of OCD, of course, there are a selection of intrusive thoughts that have a very high emotional charge and tend to compel you into unwanted, unnecessary and sometimes disturbing behaviors.
So the secret of overcoming OCD is to work with these intrusive thoughts and to neutralize them, to remove that emotional charge so that they no longer feed the compulsive behaviors.
So in Mindfulness Therapy we do this by actually meditating on those thoughts. Now this is quite different than the standard approach to working with intrusive OCD thoughts. Here we are deliberately bringing them into consciousness so that we can change our relationship to those thoughts, so that we no longer become identified with them through the reactive process we call "reactive identification.”
This is quite important because if you don't break that first step of reactive identification with intrusive thoughts then there's nothing to really to stop those intrusive thoughts from taking over and creating suffering. So we deliberately meditate on those thoughts. But we're doing it now on our terms. Doing it consciously. It's our choice to do this and that makes all the difference.
So the way it works is you make a list of your intrusive thoughts, the ones that compel you to obsessive-compulsive behaviors and then you train with each thought until you have broken that habit of reactive identification.
Basically you bring the thought into your mind and you train to sit with that thought without reacting or identifying with it. So you can hold the thought in the mind without becoming reactive and without falling into the reactive thinking that usually proliferates from the first reactive intrusive thought. You can train out of that habits of reactivity and that's the first most important step.
The second step in Mindfulness Therapy is neutralizing the emotional charge of those intrusive thoughts. And this is quite interesting because from my research over the years and practical experience, it's quite clear to me that the major factor that causes the emotional charge of an intrusive thought is its imagery. The way you see it in the mind is what actually gives it that emotional intensity.
You look at that imagery, you look at his properties, the different qualities that make that imagery so intense. Typically, of course, intrusive thoughts are going to be very large in size. So the size of that imagery is a major factor that determines its intensity.
Also its position. If it is in a very dominating position we are likely to feel overwhelmed by the thought, and that's why it feels overwhelming because we see it literally above us. We see it in a high position in our mental internal visual field. That position gives it power.
So very typical ways of working with the emotional aspect of intrusive thoughts would involve making them smaller and moving them to a lower level, putting them on the ground, for example. It's quite interesting how you can really change the intensity of a thought or belief or a memory by changing its size and its position.
So that's one way that we approach neutralizing the intrusive thoughts. There are many other aspects of the imagery we can work with such as color, texture and so on. The more that you see of its imagery the more that you can change, and the more you change the imagery of the thought the less power it has.
So that's a very classic way that we use to work with intrusive thoughts, to neutralize their charge so that they no longer feel overwhelming and are no longer able to compel us into unwanted behaviors.
So if you like to learn more about online Mindfulness Therapy for OCD using these and other techniques that I teach, then please reach out to me and send me an email. Tell me more about your particular circumstances and what you are struggling with and let schedule a trial therapy session.
So if you would like to learn more about this very exciting and interesting way of working with intrusive thoughts, then do please contact me. Thank you.
VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE ME TO LEARN HOW TO START SKYPE THERAPY WITH ME FOR HELP WITH OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER AND ANXIETY
Online Psychotherapy for overcoming Obsessive Compulsive Disorder