Hypnotherapy for OCD
If you are currently suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) you are not alone. It is estimated that between 1 to 2% of the UK are having to cope with the debilitating effects of OCD. Using hypnotherapy for OCD can help you effectively relieve the symptoms associated with the condition, enabling you to take control of your thoughts, behaviours and emotions.
It’s very probable that you are reading this with a racing mind and don’t fully understand why or what you need to do to make it stop. You may well feel guilty and even embarrassed by your current condition. Or you may worry about what the future holds if you can’t find calmness and peace in your mind. My goal is to always make you feel safe and secure and to support you while you make the positive changes necessary to find relief from your OCD,
What are obsessions and compulsions?
An obsession is when an idea, thought, image, impulse, fear or doubt continues to occupy the mind. They are seen as being intrusive and unwanted and their continual presence produces high levels of anxiety.
Compulsions are physical behaviours and actions, or mental thoughts and rituals. These are performed repeatedly in an attempt to relieve the anxiety created by the obsession. You will recognize that your behaviour is irrational. A conflict then occurs between the emotional and ration parts of your brain. However, you will feel bound to carry out them to help keep yourself or others close to you safe from harm. Your compulsions might be visible such as checking the light switch, or it may be a ritual that is inside your head. Each of them can bring its own torment.
OCD rituals
I understand that the condition can be extremely distressing and leave you feeling like you’re trapped inside your mind. It can often seem that there is little relief from your obtrusive thoughts. Whether your obsession or compulsion is visible or inside your head, there is a general 4 stage process to the way it impacts you.
- Obsession – Your mind is overwhelmed by a constant obsessive fear or concern, such as the fear your property will be burgled.
- Anxiety – This obsession provokes a feeling of intense anxiety and distress.
- Compulsion – You repeatedly carry out the behaviour in order to bring relief from your anxiety, such as checking doors and windows are locked.
- Temporary Relief – The compulsive behaviour brings temporary relief from the anxiety but the obsession and anxiety soon return only for the cycle to start again.
Perhaps you can remember a time when you were free from ruminating thoughts but now you struggle to reach a place of calmness in your mind. Together we can use online hypnotherapy to help you to relieve the symptoms of OCD allowing you to find relief and take control of your thoughts and emotions. This really doesn’t need to be a permanent part of your life. Together we can change the area of your brain that controls your thinking, freeing yourself from your ruminating thoughts.
What causes OCD?
The obsession and anxiety created by OCD are associated with the primitive mind. Throughout our evolution this older emotional side of our brain has been constantly scanning for danger, looking out for threats to our survival.
As a result of this, our brains by nature are negatively biased. We will tend to see the worst of situations to help keep us safe. Thinking negatively and fearing the worst has been one of the things that have enabled us to survive as a species.
Your worries and thought patterns surrounding your condition create anxiety. You may find yourself worrying about your future, catastrophising about what may happen or what your future may look like if your situation worsens.
When you are anxious you can’t think with logic, reason or intellect, that part of your brain is shut down. Instead, your thinking comes from your primitive mind. This will always see things from the worst possible perspective. Your primitive mind believes that it is looking out for your best interests. It keeps your obsession at the forefront of your mind because it knows that you find relief from your anxiety when you carry out your compulsion.
It is the same logic that keeps someone smoking. A smoker’s primitive mind associates having a cigarette with stress relief. It doesn’t realise that it was the cigarette that caused the stress in the first place. Your primitive mind understands that you get relief, for example, from washing your hands but it doesn’t understand it was the thought that made you wash your hands that caused you the anxiety in the first place.
It is also an obsessional mind so once it is fixated on a particular path then without help it’s very difficult to go off in a new direction. So whilst you fully understand that your compulsion isn’t at all logical, you can’t access your intellectual mind which will help you to break free.
As you’re thinking from your primitive emotional mind, which can’t think with reason, the loop continues. So you find yourself continuing to carry out your obsession to try and find relief from your thoughts. During our time together we will use a variety of techniques that will help you to break free from the control of your primitive mind. This will enable you instead to think from the intellectual part of your brain.
How hypnotherapy for OCD can help
Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is based on scientific research as to how your brain works. It offers a holistic approach to mental health and well-being improvement. Having its basis in neuroscience makes it particularly effective when dealing with anxiety. Through our time together we help you to enhance your brain’s natural ability to reduce anxiety. By lowering your anxiety levels, we enable you to think with logic. Taking control over your thinking can help you gain freedom from your obsession, bringing back a sense of calmness into your life.
During our hypnotherapy sessions, you will be encouraged to see things from a different perspective. By changing your thought processes, we can help you take control of your emotions and bring you peace of mind. Together we help you to find positive solutions in order that you can break the cycle of obsessive thinking.
We will spend time each session discussing the aspects of your future that you feel you would like to change. With Solution Focused Hypnotherapy we always look forward. You will be encouraged to visualise and discuss your future hopes. We then use hypnosis to help you work towards attaining this wonderful picture built up in your mind. We use hypnosis to gradually change the patterns in your subconscious mind. This is achieved by building new positive pathways in your brain, breaking the pattern of negative, repetitive thinking and catastrophizing.
I believe that you have everything that you need within you to gain freedom from OCD and you will be provided with all the knowledge and resources necessary to ensure that you can enjoy lifelong change. I will support you up until the point that you decide that you no longer need my help.
How can I find out more about hypnotherapy for OCD?
If you would like to find out more about how we can use hypnotherapy online to help you to live a life free of obtrusive thoughts, then please get in touch using this email link. would love to be able to help you make positive change.
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