Treating Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder with Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) frequently experience problems with disturbing, intrusive thoughts, as well as overwhelming impulses to perform ritualistic behaviors that reduce the anxiety associated with such thoughts. Traditional psychotherapy has not been found to be helpful for most individuals with OCD.  However, one modern form of treatment is particularly successful in overcoming symptoms of the disorder.

The nature of cognitive-behavioral therapy

OCD patients typically become distressed about negative thoughts or obsessions, because they see them as warnings of potentially dangerous events. Cognitive –behavioral therapy (CBT) helps patients identify such unrealistic thoughts and reinterpret them, thereby reducing anxiety.  Fewer anxious thoughts lead to decreased compulsive behavior.

How does CBT work?  Treatment focuses on helping patients examine the relationship between their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Using a collaborative and structured approach, therapists guide patients to explore and expose themselves to their fears and anxieties in a controlled and safe environment.  The beliefs surrounding those fears are also identified, challenged, and ultimately changed.

Patients learn to recognize their worries as being obsessions and to see their rituals as compulsions. Treatment includes a variety of structured techniques and strategies.

Homework

Working on assignments between therapy sessions is an important part of the treatment process.  Patients are usually asked to keep a journal or “thought record” of their obsessions, in which they write down each one when it occurs, as well as their interpretation of its meaning.  The therapist reviews the journal with the patient and helps challenge any unrealistic beliefs or “magical thinking” that surrounds the obsessive thoughts.

Behavioral Experiments

Once a patient understands the relationships between thoughts and behaviors, therapy may progress to the use of behavioral “experiments,” in which the patient practices what has been learned.  An individual who believes that touching a doorknob three times will prevent her house from burning down may be asked by her therapist to touch it only once, then leave the house.  She will then see that nothing catastrophic happens.

One effective type of behavioral experiment is the use of exposure and ritual prevention.  This technique involves a patient’s prolonged exposure to a distressing situation or object, along with strict prevention of any associated ritualistic behavior.

First the patient is exposed to a situation or cue that stimulates obsessive thoughts. For example, a patient with a germ obsession may find that touching a faucet in a public restroom triggers thoughts of contracting a fatal disease. These thoughts, in turn, lead to compulsive hand washing. During exposure, the patient may actually touch the restroom faucet, while imagining the possible horrible consequences associated with this action.

Following exposure to the triggering obsessive thought, the patient is asked to abstain from performing the behavior believed to prevent the feared consequence; e.g., ritual hand washing. After several exposures, followed by no performance of the compulsive act, the patient realizes that the feared consequence does not occur if the compulsive act is not performed.  More importantly, the patient realizes that distress and anxiety can lesson even without performance of the ritualized behaviors.

Finally, the patient and therapist process the patient’s experience during or after the experiment and discuss how the experience affects the patient’s beliefs and fears.

CBT is generally successful as a short-term therapy, and it has achieved very positive results with a variety of patients.