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Learn OCD with Natasha Moharter

Mental Compulsions in OCD🔠Spelling Out OCD🔍

Published 3 months ago • 1 min read
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My commitment is to "spell out OCD" - helping you simplify the complexities of OCD and empowering you to take action with confidence.

🔠Mental Compulsions - Spelling Out OCD🔍

Mental compulsions in OCD are often misunderstood and overlooked. This can lead to OCD being misdiagnosed, engagement in unhelpful treatment approaches, and a delay in symptom improvement.

🌱Quick review OCD is a mental health condition characterized by obsessions (intrusive thoughts) and compulsions (repetitive behaviors or mental acts). Compulsions aim to reduce anxiety but often reinforce the OCD cycle.

What are mental compulsions?

Mental compulsions are actions, just like physical compulsions. While obsessions can often feel intrusive, unexpected, and out of our control, compulsions are the actions we do have control and choice over in the OCD cycle. That being said, OCD compulsions will often feel difficult to prevent due to the fear, discomfort, or anxiety that often accompanies the OCD experience.

Examples of mental compulsions

  • Mental Review (Ruminating): Repeatedly examining past experiences to resolve them.
  • Mental Checking: Mentally testing if an obsession still bothers them.
  • Scenario Twisting (Hypothesizing): Analyzing a situation that actually happened and thinking about how one would have responded if something different would have happened in an attempt to check for certainty.
  • Thought Neutralization: Silently saying words to neutralize unwanted thoughts.

There are many more mental compulsions, and you can see my in-depth list and insights in my latest blog post:

You can also register for my upcoming training, Recognizing & Diagnosing OCD: Ethical Considerations. The next training takes place this Saturday 4/5 from 9am-1:15pm PT. Learn more and register below:

I hope you have a great rest of your week and a restful weekend!

With kind regards,

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Resources to help mental health professionals simplify the complexities of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

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