Many people have experienced this situation, and I have experienced it before, and I am fine now.

In actual work, I found that many friends with obsessive-compulsive disorder cannot receive timely, systematic and complete treatment due to various reasons. The main reasons are not being able to find a suitable psychiatrist and financial reasons. In order to truly help such friends, I combined my own successful treatment experience and spent some time to compile the following self-help manual. If it can give some practical help to my friends with obsessive-compulsive disorder, it can also alleviate the self-blame and guilt caused by my inability to help more friends.

Almost all friends with obsessive-compulsive disorder have a history of extensive psychotherapy and drug treatment, and many have lost confidence in treatment. But you should know: the past does not equal the future. Unsuccessful treatment in the past does not mean that future treatment will also be ineffective. What I want to share with you below is an effective treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder that has been verified around the world. Of course, you can use it yourself. There are certain difficulties, and this can only depend on your friends’ own determination, willpower and understanding.

◆ Two stages of the formation of obsessive-compulsive disorder

The first stage:

When a certain thought, concept, thing or situation is related to one's own anxiety, pain or When fear occurs at the same time, these thoughts, concepts, things or situations are associated with one's own anxiety, pain or fear. Through conditioned reflex, these thoughts, concepts, things or situations have the ability to make people anxious, painful or fearful. ability. When these thoughts, concepts, things or situations are intrusive, that is, they break into our brains unpredictably and uncontrollably, obsessive thinking is formed.

The second stage

In order to relieve this anxiety, pain or fear, avoidance and escape behaviors occur, and if the avoidance and escape behaviors successfully alleviate this anxiety, pain and Fear, these behaviors will be reinforced and maintained. As mentioned above, obsessive thoughts often have an intrusive nature, so many situations that trigger obsessive thoughts are difficult to truly avoid. At this time, more proactive methods, such as ritual behaviors, will be adopted to relieve anxiety, pain, or fear. These rituals Behaviors are also persisted because they temporarily relieve anxiety, pain, or fear, and we believe that these ritual behaviors are the only effective way to relieve anxiety, pain, or fear. Eventually compulsive behavior develops.

Although anxiety, pain, or fear are temporarily relieved after committing a compulsive behavior, we will immediately regret and blame ourselves, which will increase the anxiety, pain, or fear again. Because of regret and self-blame, we will try our best to control and stop the compulsive behavior next time, but in the end we will fail and implement the compulsive behavior, and we will fall into the vicious cycle of regret and self-blame again. This intense inner conflict is the greatest source of pain for friends with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

◆ Self-rescue steps

1. Determine your own fear clues

1. External clues

Most friends with obsessive-compulsive disorder are afraid of him Something in the surrounding environment, such as an object, person, or situation. For example, a friend who was forced to take baths found out after analysis that he was actually afraid of the AIDS virus, fearing that he would carry the virus and infect his family members. So I have to take a long shower every time I come back from outside. Here, the HIV virus is his external clue to fear.

2. Internal clues

Some inner imaginations, impulses or abstract ideas that make people feel ashamed or disgusted can also cause people's anxiety and pain. This category is internal fear cues. For example, the urge to hurt yourself or your loved ones, the urge to hit someone while driving, the urge to do a certain action repeatedly will have catastrophic consequences, etc.

External clues and internal clues do not necessarily exist in a person at the same time. Some people only have external clues, and some people only have internal clues.

2. Determine your own avoidance behavior

In order to reduce their pain and anxiety, friends with obsessive-compulsive disorder often adopt avoidance behaviors towards situations or things that can trigger their fear. This is consistent with fear. Like friends with symptoms. Find all your own avoidance behaviors yourself.

3. Determine your own ritual behavior

Ritual behavior is a ritual behavior taken to relieve the anxiety and pain caused by obsessive thinking. Ritual behaviors can be divided into explicit behaviors and implicit behaviors. Explicit ritual behaviors are easier to identify, such as washing hands repeatedly, bathing repeatedly, checking repeatedly, etc.; implicit ritual behaviors are relatively difficult to identify, such as someone who does not have explicit ritual behaviors. Check the behavior of locking the door, but every time he locks the door, he feels uneasy. At this time, he will count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in his head. After counting 3 times, he thinks that the door is locked. This kind of thinking of counting in his head is his implicit ritual behavior.

4. Determine the level of fear

If you are not afraid of a situation or thing at all, 0 points will be scored, and if you are extremely fearful, 100 points will be scored. Score the fear cues identified in the first step in order, and then sort the fear cues according to the score, with one ten-point grade.

5. Carry out systematic desensitization

Expose yourself to fearful thoughts and situations repeatedly and for a long time. This will provide you with rich information and break the original wrong connections. Correcting the negative evaluations that have been held ultimately promotes the habituation of previously threatening stimuli. Let yourself experience and believe that the things you fear are not as terrible as you think, and the consequences are not as serious as they think. Eventually normal behavioral response patterns are established.

Systematic desensitization should start with situations with medium fear content, then gradually increase the difficulty of the situations, and finally face the most fearful and painful situations. This process is best done with a therapist or with the help of family and friends. Corresponding cognitive adjustments must be made throughout the process. The frequency of exposure must be sufficient and the duration of each exposure must be long enough, otherwise the effect will not be achieved.

6. Prevent avoidance behavior

Usually exposing people to situations they fear will make people feel anxious and painful, so they try to avoid such situations. At this time, you must rely on your own willpower or the help of others to prevent the avoidance behavior from occurring. As long as you are exposed to the fearful situation for a long enough time, the anxiety and pain will be relieved. After repeated large amounts of desensitization and preventing the occurrence of avoidance behaviors, the fear of such situations will eventually be lost and a normal behavior pattern will be established.

7. Strictly control the occurrence of ritual behaviors

Obsessive thinking causes pain, and ritual behaviors can reduce this pain. For example, a friend who was forced to wash his hands and check himself repeatedly found that his pain and anxiety were relieved after performing ritual behaviors. As a result, this ritual behavior was considered to be the only effective way to relieve anxiety and pain. This allows ritual behavior to be fixed and developed.

The purpose of this step is to break the false connection between this ritual behavior and pain relief, so that people can experience and believe that their pain and anxiety can be relieved without performing this ritual behavior.

When you are in a situation of anxiety and pain, you will want to use ritual behaviors to relieve this anxiety and pain. At this time, you have to rely on your own willpower or the help of others to prevent the ritual behavior from happening. If you practice this repeatedly, you will find that your anxiety and pain will actually be relieved if you do not perform the ritual behavior. Eventually the ritual behavior ceases to occur.

8. Avoid the occurrence of new ritual behaviors

Because preventing ritual behaviors will make you anxious and painful, many times you will involuntarily develop new ritual behaviors. For example, if you control yourself from washing your hands repeatedly, you will unknowingly wash your hands repeatedly to relieve anxiety and pain. Be aware of these new ritual behaviors and stop them.

Note:

1. Exposure and ritual behavior prevent treatment of different aspects of obsessive-compulsive disorder, so both steps must be carried out.

2. The frequency of exposure should be sufficient and the duration of each exposure should be long enough. It is best to involve other people.

3. Cognitive adjustment during the entire process is the key to preventing recurrence and maintaining long-term efficacy.

4. Since this kind of therapy will make people more anxious and painful in the short term, they must have high enough motivation for treatment and determination to change, and be prepared to "endure temporary pain and bring long-term liberation." "Ideological preparation.

5. Friends with alcohol dependence or substance abuse, friends with severe delusions and delusions, and friends with severe depression are not suitable for the above treatments.

Reference: Dong Zhenming - Psychological Medicine