Treating OCD online

Treating OCD online via Skype Therapy Sessions

Online therapy for OCD and anxiety

Online Mindfulness Psychotherapist via Skype for Dealing with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Intrusive Overthinking without using medications.

Mindfulness Therapy provides an effective approach for eliminating obsessive thoughts and behaviors by teaching you how to work with your OCD thoughts and compulsions using mindfulness training and the methods of Mindfulness Therapy.

To successfully overcome OCD and obsessive-intrusive thoughts you MUST learn how to neutralize the underlying fear, that fuels obsessive-intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors.

This is the primary focus of Mindfulness-based Exposure Therapy for overcoming OCD and is what I will be teaching you during our online therapy sessions together.

VISIT MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE ONLINE THERAPY WITH ME FOR TREATING OCD WITHOUT MEDICATION

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 Counseling for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Online Mindfulness Psychotherapy through Skype for Controlling Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Intrusive Overthinking without using 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. 

Online Mindfulness-based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for OCD

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 FOR DETAILS AND TO SCHEDULE AN ONLINE THERAPY SESSION WITH ME

Online cognitive behavioral therapy for OCD

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 Obsessive Compulsive Disorder 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 GET STARTED!

Online Therapists for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

How to Overcome Pure O intrusive thoughts through Online Mindfulness Therapy via Skype

Welcome! My name is Peter Strong. I am a professional psychotherapist specializing in Mindfulness Therapy for the treatment of anxiety and depression and also obsessive-compulsive disorder including what is now becoming called Pure O, Pure Obsessive OCD. So this is basically the situation in which the mind is bombarded by intrusive thoughts. 

The kind of cognitive material that invades the mind can be in the form of just repetitive thoughts; it could be in the form of repetitive intrusive beliefs; it could be in the form of an obsessive desire to hurt yourself or another person. 

 Very often the intrusive thoughts take the form of imagery, whether fantasy imagery or memory imagery as in the case of PTSD flashback memories. These thoughts and images become very intrusive, taking a great deal of our attention and cause a tremendous amount of emotional suffering in the form of anxiety and also depression, as well. 

 So it's really quite common. Pure O OCD, Pure O, is quite common. It's estimated probably at least 1 percent of the population in the USA and also in the UK and Europe suffer from some form of Pure OCD. 

 The best approach to deal with this is not to try and block those thoughts, because that reaction, that response of aversion, tends to feed the intrusive thoughts themselves. It feeds the emotional charge that keeps those thoughts recurring in the mind. So we don't try to argue with the thoughts, we don't try to remove them; we certainly don't try to avoid them, either. 

 What we find is most effective is some form of exposure therapy. So exposure response prevention therapy has become quite popular, ERP, and the type of therapy that I offer online is called Mindfulness-based Exposure Therapy, which is very effective indeed. 

So in the approach that I use, we deliberately bring those intrusive thoughts into the mind but we train ourselves to remain as the observer. The habit we are trying to combat here is the habit of reactive identification, whereby we become and thought. We lose our identity as the observer and we become the object that is observed, which in this case is the obsessive thought or image. 

So that process of reactive identification is really what feeds Pure O and other forms of OCD, because the moment that you become captivated by the thoughts or the emotion and you start reacting then that will feed the emotion that is fueling that intrusive thought. 

 So we have to learn how to sit with the intrusive thoughts or images without reacting. And that takes some training and that's what I will teach you during the Online Mindfulness Therapy sessions that I offer. 

 We will learn to meditate on those thoughts, taking each thought and making it the primary object of our conscious attention. That's quite different than reactive awareness where it's just running the show. Now we are training and becoming detached from the thoughts and becoming the observer of the thoughts, and that's a very different quality of consciousness and that does not feed the emotional charge of the thoughts or images. 

 So that's the first stage in working with OCD intrusive thoughts. We learn to become the observer and cultivate that state of being the observer. The second part of working with Pure O thoughts is one of looking at the imagery of the emotion that is feeding the thoughts. So the thought itself is not actually the problem.

Now emotions work through imagery in the mind. The imagery of an emotion is what actually causes that emotion to take form, and then that emotion converts into thoughts and actions, and so on. So we examine the imagery of the emotion. 

We work on changing that imagery, because when you change the imagery you change the intensity of the thought. When you change it enough, then the thought loses its emotional charge and then it will cease to be intrusive.

In the case of PTSD and emotional trauma the factor that really keeps those image-based thoughts active and intrusive in the mind is the intensity and size of the imagery itself. The qualities of the imagery are what keep the thoughts alive in the mind so we work on changing that imagery.

Contact me to learn more about how to work with your Pure O OCD using Mindfulness Therapy. 

Treating OCD online

GO TO MY CONTACT PAGE TO SCHEDULE AN ONLINE THERAPY SESSION FOR THE TREATMENT OF OCD