Thought-action Fusion and OCD Treatment Addressing thought- action fusion is a key component of many cognitive-behaviorally oriented psychological treatments for OCD. Although the imagined link between thoughts and actions is almost always illogical, if you have OCD it can sometimes be difficult to have insight into the irrationality of these thoughts. Therapy focuses, in part, on challenging the imagined link between thoughts and actions/outcomes through experiments or observation. For example, if you are afraid that thinking about a bomb going off in your workplace makes it more likely that this will happen, you could intentionally think about this and then see if this feared outcome comes true or not. Although initially distressing, these types of experiments can help challenge beliefs about the link between thoughts and actions as well as make thought suppression less likely; indeed, if your thoughts are not actually dangerous, why push them away? Behaviorally-oriented therapies such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) also work to build flexibility in thinking rather than trying to eliminate distressing thoughts like obsessions using a variety of mindfulness techniques, metaphors and life enhancement exercises. ACT teaches clients to be less invested in their thoughts, which helps to avoid to the tendency to label thoughts as dangerous.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Aug 2013 03:56:57 +0000
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